Colors
by palesadpuppet
Summary: [Complete. Rated for shonenai, light yaoi, angst, and violence] Everything from a day of pharaoh hating insanity to a golden kiss by sunset... RyouxBakura, YamixYugi, ThiefkingxBakura.
1. flowery metaphors

This story is my entry for the 30kisses fanfiction challenge on Livejournal; thus, these oneshots can also be found there. Pairing: Ryou Bakura x Yami No Bakura, my OTP, yay!

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, or any of the characters, situations, names, etc. involved in it. They are the property of Kazuki Takahashi. This applies to all the chapters following this one, as well as all the other fanfiction I write.

The assignment was simple. "Write a poem in English," said their teacher, "about your classmates. Try to use as florid a variety of words as you can. _Yes, _Jounouchi, poetry..."

Ryou Bakura had wandered home after school, thinking. He didn't have a way with words; at least he was a fast learner, and knew English better than most of the other students. His walk had taken him through Domino City, along the winding sidewalk, eyes searching for inspiration. Window shopping gave him a few ideas; he considered, for a moment, comparing his classmates to the various shops in town, based on what they sold. But after awhile of contemplation, he realized that he didn't really know his classmates that well. What would the Miho store sell?

Maybe Jounouchi would sell knives. Although Ryou smiled at the thought, it occurred to him that he could offend people that way, and abandoned the idea.

Cherry blossoms fluttered through the air as he walked past the neighbor's cherry tree; a few white-pink petals caught in his hair. _Flowers..._

Ryou started dinner, and sat down at the table with his notebook. For awhile, he did nothing _but _sit, gnawing the end of his pencil. Dinner was done before he'd written anything at all.

_Yugi is a red rose... beauty and determination and blushing romance... Yugi is a sunflower, proud and glorious..._

Except Yugi's short, Ryou thought. Sunflowers are taller than he is.

_The Pharaoh makes him look taller. It fits, _declared the voice in his head. So Ryou wrote down sunflower as well.

_Anzu is a daisy... small and sturdy but graceful... Jounouchi is a dahlia, prickly and burdened and strong... Honda is amaranthus, Love Lies Bleeding and forgotten quickly... Kaiba is a bachelor button, fragile and haughty..._

_Otogi is an iris, strange and unique. I am_

His pencil froze above the paper. He didn't know. _Gardenia, _said Yami No Bakura, _white and frail._

_a gardenia, pale and quiet; and a forget-me-not with a worthless romance;_

_Worthless?_

_and a geranium, bloodstained but determined;_

_WORTHLESS?_

_and an apple blossom, just the host for something greater..._

"What is Miho?" Ryou wondered, drumming his pencil on the notebook's open pages.

_YADUNOSHI!_

"Yes?"

And, quite suddenly, the Millenium Ring flashed. Ryou visibly tensed; he felt hot breath on his hair and the back of his neck, and didn't need to look up to know who was standing behind him. Yami No Bakura gripped his host by the shoulders, leaned over Ryou at an awkward angle, and commenced kissing him.

_Worthless? _the millenium spirit inquired- mentally, because their mouths were busy with other tasks.

_You hadn't been doing this for awhile! _Ryou thought back, defensively. Yami No Bakura leaned back, freeing them both from the awkward (but, somehow, _very_ comfortable) position. _And it is worthless. Wouldn't you rather kill the pharaoh than kiss me?_

_No, _Yami No Bakura said pleasantly.

_Oh, _was all Ryou could manage. Particularly since a certain ring-spirit's lips were demanding immediate attention.

_Well, I suppose that's what erasers are for. _


	2. cherry tree

They thought he was all innocence. It was in their eyes, in their movements, in their blushing faces, and even hidden in their words. Perhaps he ought to have been all innocence, a tragic and righteous martyr. The boys softened their words around him, smiled more and talked about friendship. The girl was more stern and watchful, ready to smack any boy that said something vulgar by mistake. In a way, he made _them _innocent, just by being there.

He wasn't innocent.

Torn and tainted and tortured and twisted, Ryou Bakura was anything but. He should have been innocent, with Yami No Bakura as the other half of himself. But at the same time, the dark spirit was not evil.

Just pain.

Ryou walked home through the park after school that day; he was alone, though Yugi had offered to come with him. Yugi wasn't so innocent, either.

"How does the yinyang work?" Ryou wondered aloud, certain that there was no one near enough to overhear him. "It doesn't make sense."

_Dark and light, _Yami No Bakura said simply. _That's all it represents._

"But it _can't. _Aren't dark and light... entwined?"

_Light casts shadows. _

"Exactly. How can light be... _light_, when it's mixed with darkness? You don't get white and black if you mix them together. You just get gray. I... I've seen to much of you to be the perfect light. I'm not pure..."

_None of the lighter halves are. Yugi isn't pure, either. He is just an ordinary teenager, with the same naïveté and the same lust as any other. Yadunoshi... you're different. _

"What do you mean?" Ryou questioned.

_You don't think like other people. You embrace both sides. You don't believe... that there is a black and white... the Pharaoh and his vessel can't see beyond their noses. Pharaoh's tainted his light, even more than I've stained you._

"I suppose that's true."

_It's all... gray..._

Ryou fell silent, as did the ring-spirit, as they passed a group of jogging women. His foot sent a few stray pebbles clattering across the street as he crossed, leaving the park behind. It was true, Domino City was rather gray here, with rain clouds darkening the skies and many steely buildings rising into the air.

The neighbor's cherry tree was with fruit, the branches bowed down with the weight of its burden. A growing wind rustled through the grass and tore gently through the air, whistling gently in Ryou's ears. He paused a moment to admire the tree, and smiled. "Bakura..."

_What, host? _The thief inquired, sounding uncharacteristically weary.

"I don't think it's gray at all. Look."

Ryou felt the spirit's curiosity trickling through their link, as Yami No Bakura peered out of his eyes. _What...?_

"_Colors,_" Ryou whispered. "Look. It's not black and white _or _gray."

Yami No Bakura said nothing. The Millennium Ring twitched a few times before going limp and dormant against Ryou's chest.

Ryou continued down the sidewalk to the apartment complex where he lived, the wind tickling his hair like ghostly fingers.

He had made dinner and washed up and done half of his homework assignment before the ring-spirit crept out of his Millennium item. Ryou called Bakura with his heart, and the link formed between them again. There was a comfortable quiet between them; Ryou's pencil skittered across his paper, writing notes. "There are more colors in here, aren't there?" he asked, never once pausing in his scribbles.

_Yes. _Yami No Bakura leaned out of the Ring, appearing in a chair beside his chosen host. Ryou didn't look up, but a smile spread across his face. "There's some more soup in the fridge, if you want any," the pale-haired student said quietly.

Bakura studied him, almost like someone staring into a mirror. Ryou wasn't white at all; he was about as white as Bakura was black. They were _colors_, not shades of gray. Ryou was the perfect shade of sky blue that proclaimed a sunny day; and baby blue, muted and soft- oh-so-soft-; and navy, mixed with a few dark clouds, the taint that Bakura had mixed into Ryou's natural set of paints.

_Thank you._

He rose from his seat and located the soup, pouring it into a pan and setting it on the stove at medium-highHe pressed a kiss to the top of Ryou's soft-white-silver head, letting his fingers trail through the smooth mane of hair as he stood there a moment. The pencil stopped scribbling.

Ryou tilted his head back, and his eyes were warm like the sun on a blueberry-sky day. Arching his back, he pressed a kiss to the ring-spirit's lips, laughing gently. "Enjoy your dinner."


	3. happy

It was only 7:00 in the morning, and Ryou feared that he might be scarred for life. He was _not _awake yet, had very nearly spilled coffee on himself whilst trying to peel a banana, and was deeply aware of the towering pile of dishes in his sink. Things did not get better when he tried to get his lunch ready; several foodstuffs ended up on the floor, on the counter, or on the table.

Ryou mopped up the jam and bread crumbs and sat down hard, burying his face in his hands. He hadn't _meant _to get up so early. But Yami No Bakura had broken his alarm clock some time ago, and the only surviving clock was in the kitchen. Thus, Ryou had spent several agonizing minutes dragging himself out of bed, only to discover that he didn't have school for several more hours.

But, by the time he'd wrapped his tired brain around that concept, the coffee was almost done. It seemed a shame not to drink it. The caffeine buzzed through his system, and his head was beginning to hurt. The sad, tattered remnants of what had been a sandwich (before he dropped it) sat before him. They looked somewhat accusing.

There was a low growl from behind him. Ryou twisted about to look over his shoulder, and wasn't surprised to find his darker half standing there, disheveled and clad in a long black coat. The coat was, Ryou suspected, to make Bakura look badass instead of sleep-deprived. It wasn't quite working.

However, Bakura specialized in making himself look _feral_, and was capable of doing so even on little sleep. His bitter-chocolate eyes narrowed and glared, sweeping the kitchen with a kingly expression that said _this is all below me. _His mouth was open just slightly, revealing unusually sharp canines and clenched teeth. And the wilder-than-usual white hair that stuck up and out from his head gave him the appearance of a rather aggressive animal. Ryou gave a slight cringe as the haughty gaze paused on him.

The air of _pure soul-sucking, baby-gobbling evil _that Bakura was putting on faltered, however, at the sight of the tortured sandwich. He blinked a few times and then strode across the room, leaning over Ryou to inspect said food. Then he grinned- reinstating his evil aura- and announced: "Congratulations, host."

Ryou blinked. "Pardon?"

"You're shaping up well," Bakura declared. Ignoring his host's perplexed look, the Egyptian spirit went on. "I've been waiting for this day. We can find some pitiful mortals to practice on later. But from the looks of it..." He leaned out further, his small nose nearly touching the ruined sandwich. "... your torture procedures are coming along quite nicely, even with such mediocre tools as kitchen knives and forks..."

Bakura cackled a few times, and placed his hands on Ryou's shoulders in what seemed a proud, fatherly manner. Resting his chin in the boy's tangled hair, he massaged Ryou's back with the kind of gentle, smooth skill that one didn't expect from a megalomaniac thief. Ryou sighed blissfully and went limp.

Twenty minutes later, Bakura's hands disappeared; the spirit purred into Ryou's hair and moved away towards the fridge.

"What are you on?" Ryou asked, smiling dreamily. He rolled his shoulders a few times before sitting up straight and taking a long sip of coffee.

"Noodles," said Bakura, and came back to the table with a tall container of Thai takeout. He seized a pair of chopsticks out of the nearest drawer; his host sat back and watched with mild alarm as the food vanished. What happened to the food when Bakura went back into the Ring? Ryou wondered. Did it simply vanish? Did some strange rule send it to the Shadow Realm? It seemed a waste of food.

Bakura finished his meal, threw his chopsticks at the Leaning Tower of Dishes in the sink, crunched up the container, and flung it haphazardly at the trash can. He missed by a few feet, but didn't seem to care. Ryou glared at him- as best he could, since Ryou was the 'light' and therefore wasn't greatly experienced in glaring- and went to wash the dishes.

Bakura's arm shot out in front of him, arresting his movement and effectively knocking the wind from him. Ryou doubled over, gasping slightly, and the thief yanked him close. "Good _morning, _host."

"_What _the _hell _are you doing?" Ryou inquired, gritting his teeth as Bakura scooped him into his lap. This was just it, the hazards of letting Bakura be in a good mood.

But, of course, there were also the _fun _side effects of a happy Ring-spirit. Bakura didn't seem quite able to stop kissing him. "You know-" Kiss. "- you-" Kiss. "- are going-" Kiss, giggle. "- to be late-" Kiss, kiss, kiss. "- for school."

"Make me," Ryou grinned.


	4. desert walk

It was true. Sand did get everywhere. There was a fine layer of it coating his skin; it weighed down his clothing, tangled in his hair, stung in his eyes, and tickled his nose. And every single _grain _of sand was like fire, scorching and enflaming his dry skin; the sun had heated the desert. It was an oven, all around him.

He'd traveled less than half the distance he'd hoped to cover before he gave up, collapsing in the shade of a towering sand dune. From a pocket of his long, brick-colored robe he withdrew his precious supply of water. His throat was dry and throbbing, but he took the smallest, daintiest of sips and ignored the thirst. His stomach was empty. As he slumped down in the shadows, resting his head in the cooler sand, his belly ached and grumbled at him. Ignoring this, he gave a sigh and closed tired eyes. It wasn't as if he would get far if he didn't have rest, anyway...

A few of his golden trinkets clinked and chimed as he squirmed into a more comfortable position; the sound was soft and muted, but all the same he froze, as if afraid he might be heard. Paranoia had kept him alive in the past.

He was alone. Relaxing again, the king of thieves lay still, the sun traveling peacefully above him as he slept. Everything was quiet and motionless; occasionally, the wind would give a gentle moan, and shift the sands around him. His was a deep, silent, emotionless sleep; he never dreamed. He had learned to push himself into this near-comatose state, because whenever he tried to sleep normally, he was plagued by nightmares. And it wouldn't do for the king of thieves to wake up screaming. Again.

It had brought the Pharaoh's guards down on him, once. His escape had been narrow.

Bakura finally awoke when it was late, the sun beginning to sink low in the sky. He stirred only slightly at first, shifting his head to the side and parting his lips, just slightly, to breathe in the cold night air. In doing so, he inhaled more than a little sand; coughing wildly, he rolled over onto his stomach, fumbling for his waterskin. Another small drink was enough to clear the sand from his mouth. He sat up, wiping sand from his lips. Gathering his robe a bit tighter about him, the thief rose and set off again.

He didn't feel... well, not refreshed. He was still weary; his feet and back were protesting the mad dash across the desert that he'd had to perform, in order to put distance between himself and the guards. But the exhaustion had alleviated somewhat, enough that he could go on. At least it wasn't so damn _hot_ anymore.

The thief king possessed a resilience that many men would envy, and his patience was unflagging. He walked, in a straight line, slightly hunched over due to his hefty robe and numerous items of jewelry. His dark amethyst eyes were narrowed and focused on the horizon, blinking every few minutes, as intent as if he expected the world to disappear if he didn't keep watching it. Beneath the robe, he wore only his simple kilt; the cool, soothing night breeze blew gently through his grimy white hair and across his bronzed chest. The moonlight glinted off of the dozens of trinkets, necklaces, and bracelets that he was draped in.

Intending to make up for the time he'd lost while sleeping, Bakura picked up the pace a bit, pushing his aching body to the limit of its strength. There was a fire inside him... he wouldn't and _couldn't _stop...

The sun rose quickly. Too quickly. For a moment- until it hurt his eyes- the thief king stood and stared as it soared up, streaking through the sky before positioning itself directly above his head. He fumbled in his robe, locating his white headdress, and tried to put it on; but, the moment his hands were exposed they began to burn. Bakura gave a feral hiss of pain and fisted his hands in the fabric of his robe, hoping that the still-cool cloth would soothe them.

The sun was so hot on his hair... it felt as though it would set him afire at any moment. He bowed his head, glancing about for a patch of shade, a dune, _anything _hide in. But the desert was suddenly flat, and the breeze had stopped; the source of the heat was directly overhead, casting no shadows. A drop of sweat rolled down his nose and dripped into the sand.

Bakura wrapped his arms around himself and dropped into the sand, his robe both stifling and a relief from the heat. The back of his neck, just slightly exposed, stung and scorched agonizingly as it burned.

The thief king closed his eyes. "Damn you, pharaoh," he said, quiet calmly. It was his reaction to every wretched situation- blame the pharaoh. It was only logic, considering that the pharaoh was the cause of all his problems anyway.

Abruptly, there were cold hands- not just chill, but _ice_-cold. They rolled him over, gently; but that was all right. He was shielded from the sun... by what? Slender fingertips were tracing along his jaw, almost tickling. A pair of soft lips pressed against his forehead. "Bakura, wake up."

The pale spirit blinked. And blinked again. Ryou's face, wreathed in neat white hair, was peering down at him; the boy was leaning over him, a playful smile on his face. "You've been asleep for a while now. Weren't you going to bother Dark Yugi today?"

Not the pharaoh. Dark Yugi. Not the desert... Bakura looked around dazedly, disoriented for a moment by these new surroundings... the soul room. Not the thief king. Stealer of souls, Yami No Ryou Bakura.

Ryou noticed his dark half's confusion, and waved a hand slowly in front of the Egyptian spirit's face. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Bakura said, sitting up sedately as to not bump into Ryou.

The boy drew away. "I've got to back in control of the body. I'm in the restroom just now, but class might be starting soon, and Yugi will worry if I'm late. Wait until lunch hour to bother Dark Yugi, all right?"

Bakura nodded, watching as Ryou pulled open the door of his soul room and disappeared. He climbed off the tall heap of cushions and blankets that he slept on and stretched widely, before going to sit next to his pile of gold. Everything in Bakura's soul room was divided into piles; here was the jewel pile, there was the 'random thoughts' pile, and there was the (oddly large) 'mushy crap about Ryou' pile.

He cast a glance at his 'bed', and his mahogany eyes glared. The dreams remained, even though he'd long left them behind.


	5. fire of the sun

He was going to make it this time. The path was laid below his feet- literally speaking. His sandal-clad feet padded noiselessly along the stone road; his narrowed lavender eyes swiveled about rapidly, staring at his surroundings with distrust. He could feel the closeness of his home; it was drawing him closer and closer.

And then he saw it in the distance. Expecting to be relieved, Bakura was startled when a painful feeling of loss stopped him in his tracks. The village was a wreck, the ruined buildings silhouettes against the golden horizon. It was the emptiness of the scene that sent a wave of grief through him; the barren plain of flat, pale sand leading up to his lonely, crippled home. With great force of will, the king of thieves forced himself to keep moving. He had come this far; there was no where else to go.

It puzzled him immensely. He had been trying to find Kul Elna for so long, and now that it was within his reach... within his vision... he could barely find the courage to keep going. The Millennium Ring bounced gently on his chest; he walked, as lightly as such a tall, burly man could.

So the desert wasn't endless, after all, he thought, as he approached the village. A prickle of unease trailed down his spine, and he glanced warily about. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Home shouldn't be a place where he jumped at the shadows and had to keep watching his back. But Bakura had been a robber and a public enemy for too long to let down his guard.

He stalked into the center of town, keeping to the darkest alleys and moving swiftly. He knew this place like the back of his hand, even though it had been a long time. There was a fountain... beyond that, his home... beyond that, the houses of everyone else he'd known.

_There should be fire, _Bakura snarled mentally. _It should be burning! There was smoke- where's the blood? - and there was ash. No one could breathe! Not even when they were dying! THEY SHOULD BE SCREAMING! Pharaoh doesn't believe a word, brainwashed little smug brat I want him to see and listen to them die I'd burn him alive and melt him into gold like THEM!_

Bakura tore the Ring from around his neck with a scream and threw it against the fountain, listening to the metal clang against stone with a noise that sounded outraged. He whirled about and stared wildly around the village. The life of Kul Elna was still smoldering, but there were no embers to be seen. Bakura felt it, like the heat that scorched his skin in midday; the connection between his old home and the golden Millennium Items. The soul of this place was inside them.

And it never left him. It was everywhere; his fellow villagers surrounded him at every moment. There was a strange comfort in being there, Kul Elna, for the spirits remembered this place. They drifted away for awhile, exploring with interest the homes that they had once lived in. It hadn't been all that long ago, for the immortal ghosts; for Bakura, the dozen years he had spent on learning to fight and thieve had been much longer.

One of his fists clenched slightly. This was his burden, the reason he could never let himself die. Until the day when Egypt burned and the sky fell and the darkness consumed everything and the gods weren't there to judge him, Bakura _couldn't die. _He was a puppet. He had no doubt about that.

Slowly, the king of thieves turned, feeling the gentle breath of a lonely breeze kiss his face; he found the Ring and pulled its cord over his head. His hands trembled only slightly. The Millennium Item shivered against his chest, and its five pointers dug into his chest, hard enough to draw blood- as if to say, _don't do that again._

Bakura lifted his head and stared into the sky, stretching to eternity above him.

And then it turned black. His eyes were already adjusted to the darkness, as he slowly sat up from his bed and blinked owlishly. Quietly, he sprang down to the floor and crept to the door of his soul room. He stepped into the hallway between his soul room and Ryou's. _What time is it? _he asked the boy.

No reply. That meant Ryou was dreaming, and it was still nighttime. Bakura stole across the hall to Ryou's door and easily flung it open, though opening the door to another's soul room was no simple task.

Ryou's soul was blue in many shades. The walls were like the sky on a sunny day; here and there were splotches of white, like clouds. The carpet was a dark, thick, dank kind of navy-blue. There were posters hung on the walls, posters for games and idols and actors that Bakura didn't care to know about. In his opinion, Ryou was the most beautiful thing in existence; and if _everything_ was measured in loveliness, Ryou would rule the universe.

The object of Bakura's affection was sprawled on a simple cot; the sheets, pillows, and blankets were all in white. Ryou's hair was thick and white, and fanned out around his head; his eyes were the soft brown of a teddy bear, but they were closed in sleep. A smile was spread across his face, small and innocent. It was obviously not time to get up yet.

Bakura glanced over his shoulder, across the hall, and towards his own room. The darkness was where he belonged. Not... here.

His bare toes curled in the carpet, and he turned, his nails digging into his palm. Before his will could fail him, the dark spirit tore out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He didn't care if it woke Ryou up.

When he was in his room, Bakura locked the door behind him and buried himself in the pile of pillows and cushions. He felt his own weariness, and just a shred of Ryou's trickling through their link; it was probably early in the morning now...

He closed his eyes against the shadows and fell into his endless dreams.


	6. view

He'd seen it all before.

If there had been anyone present to watch, they would have been frightened at the detached blankness on his face. Bakura sat atop the highest building, with no recollection of how he'd scaled it; his chin was cupped in his hands, and he was staring downwards. The screams didn't seem to hurt his ears the way they had when first he'd heard them; the smell of warm, fresh blood was now quite familiar to him; and the sight of mangled bodies, even though they were everyone close to him, hardly disturbed him.

It had been midnight when the Pharaoh's men had come, and his dream had recreated the scene perfectly. The moon was bright, pure, and brilliant overhead. _The moon is with us, _one of the soldiers had said. Bakura didn't know how he'd managed to hear that, but he had. He turned the words over and over in his mind, watching the bodies drop into the giant cauldron one by one. Two by two, in the case of his parents, who had clung together even when the soldiers tried to tear them apart. His parents were putting on an act, of course; Bakura recognized it as a lie almost immediately. He had experience in telling and seeing through lies. They wanted the soldiers to believe that there was nothing more to their family.

They didn't want the soldiers to notice the tiny, white-haired boy who cowered in the shadows. He didn't weep or, indeed, make any sound at all; his eyes were wide, and the expression on his face was one of outright horror, the kind of expression that no child should have to bear.

_Didn't want me alive, eh, Pharaoh? _A snarl formed on Bakura's lips as he surveyed the scene. _No one was supposed to survive the slaughter of Kul Elna... least of all the young touzoku-ou..._

A harsh, strangled cry rang out into the night. It was the first scream he'd heard in some time. There was the last victim of the soldiers- a child, younger even than the little boy in the shadows- and he was being dragged to the cauldron. The thief king watched, calm and cold; the screaming only lasted a moment, before the last living sacrifice was destroyed in the dark ritual. Bakura stared up at the moon, needing no more than his nose to know what was happening below; the scent of blood and gold was strong in the air.

_The moon was with them... _it looked pure enough to be part of their 'righteous' and 'just' mass murder. The Pharaoh's soldiers had all been fed lies; by the Pharaoh, by the priests, and by their own minds. Bakura's narrowed eyes fell across the cauldron for just a moment as he gazed at the darkened village; then he continued scanning the area, looking disgusted. _If only the Pharaoh could see his great justice..._

Kul Elna burned. Flaming arrows had set the houses alight; smoke coiled into the sky, twisting and writhing against shafts of moonlight. Bakura had been waiting to see it again, ever since the dreams began. This was the center of his soul, a blazing and crippled village and an old stone tablet and melting gold.

"Are you all right?"

Bakura moved with remarkable speed, somersaulting over backwards and springing to his feet, fumbling for his knife. The weapon was in his grasp, and he was about to draw it when he realized that the moonlight was illuminating a boy with long, white hair like Bakura's own. "Ryou," the thief snapped, putting the knife away. "What are you doing here?"

Ryou drew nearer, brown eyes wide and fascinated. There was a touch of worry and pity in his face, but mostly he seemed intent on Bakura. "I've... never seen you like this... is this really what you looked like when you were...?"

"What? Oh." Bakura shrugged slightly, realizing that Ryou was referring to his Egyptian appearance. "Yes."

"I was sleeping in my soul room," Ryou admitted, stepping forward casually. "I like to, it feels safer there. And I was dreaming of Amane. I heard an... echo of what you were seeing." The boy looked down and Bakura recognized that as a sure sign that Ryou was trying not to show his tears. "It was so awful, I... I had to come see if you were okay..."

Ryou began to turn away, but the thief king caught his arm in a firm grasp and stepped across the rooftop to his side. "I'm fine. Are you?"

"W-why wouldn't I be?"

"Because your average _human _has difficulty stomaching my past self's life," Bakura growled, releasing Ryou's arm only to nestle close to him, his head lying against the shorter boy's shoulder.

"Yes... I'm all right," Ryou said quietly, returning the embrace; his delicate fingertips trailed gently over the skin of Bakura's back. The thief was tall and thickset in his memories, quite unlike the small and slender Bakura that Ryou knew; immortal spirits had little use for muscles. The boy felt scars under his light touch, and resisted the urge to ask where they were from.

"If you have nightmares because you went poking about in my dreams..." Bakura muttered, before drawing in a deep breath and kissing Ryou, a little harder than he had in the past; this body was strong and powerful. After so long in his modern body, which was weak and thin since it mirrored Ryou's, Bakura was used to pushing himself hard. The thief king's body could have easily crushed the boy in his hands, and yet his touch was unusually tender.

They stood there for a long time, breathing through their noses so as not to break the kiss, swaying slightly in the breeze. Like a pair of fine trees with their branches entwined, Ryou and Bakura remained side by side, their eyes closed and their identical hair mingling, as the fires went out in Kul Elna.


	7. gift of blood

It was a long time before the boy dared emerge from his hiding place. His stomach was growling, and his throat sore, and everyone was long gone. The ashes were drifting through the air like a fine gray mist; the smell was atrocious; and his vision swam as he slowly stood. Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes, from the smoky air and the stench and from everything that had transgressed. The boy blinked them away, stretching, and hurried out into the street.

Even as a child, Bakura was a thief; he ran like a cat, low and fast, instinctively hiding in the shadows. He felt a strange mixture of fear and exhilaration; he was _alone_, and the world was his enemy. He was already condemned, so he didn't have to abide by the laws that bound others; he was free, and trapped, all at once.

He paused in the center of town, crouching beside the fountain and peering around with wide eyes and trembling hands. He was sure the Pharaoh's soldiers were gone; and yet, he had been sure that the Pharaoh's soldiers would never be able to harm Kul Elna. Bakura expected them _not _to do as he thought they would. Wouldn't they be chasing him if they were there? It wasn't as though they had anything to fear from him.

Bakura straightened, glancing about again and shivering. It was nearing sunrise, but he had been out all night, waiting until they were all gone, and Egyptian nights were cold. The little thief wrapped his arms around himself and simply stood, shaking, in the empty village; every so often, the smoke made him cough, but he didn't move.

When the sun finally rose, it was too hot.

Bakura found himself huddled in the shade again, legs drawn up against his chest, freezing and afire all at once. He swallowed a few times, trying to wet his throat, before giving a miserable little noise and letting his head fall against his knees. _What did we do? _he asked. _We were just trying to live, weren't we?_

The answer had to lie with the cauldron. Bakura's eyes grew dark as the giant pot's image flared into his mind; for a moment, all he could see was the bodies, alive and flailing, toppling inside. _One after another... _The villagers of Kul Elna had not begged for their lives. Perhaps because they knew that no mercy would be given, and perhaps because they were brave. _Why am I not dead? Everyone else is dead. The whole village is dead... am I a... ghost?_

He tossed back his head; it hit the stone wall behind him _hard_, assuring him that he was flesh and blood indeed. Bakura gave a tiny moan and touched the swelling, cringing and drawing his hand away when it elected a stab of pain. He'd nearly broken the skin. _I'm alive... I'm alive...?_

_They... all died... so I could be the last alive... and I can't even... _

He got up, and took a step forward; his bare foot splashed in something cold and wet. His eyes angled downwards quickly. _Red?_

Bakura knelt in the sand, cocking his head to one side curiously. _Blood. _All the blood had gone in the cauldron... it was supposed to have mixed with the gold. Had the soldiers left this portion of it on purpose, because they didn't need it all? Or had they missed some? _Who's blood, I wonder?_

He dipped a finger in the bright red liquid, watching with slight interest as it trailed down his his hand and his wrist. It looked almost as though it had been spilled from wounds of his own. _My blood... ours?_

Bakura laughed softly, a quiet and chilling sound. The stupid soldiers had spilt this blood and not taken it, and he had found it; it was his own now, to do with as he pleased. The Pharaoh's men had _never _given Kul Elna a gift before, even unintentionally. But look at this! Little patches and puddles of blood, soaking in the sand. The soldiers had left Kul Elna some of its own. The boy drew his finger to his lips and licked it lightly.

The taste exploded down his throat. Steel and silk, cold and so harsh that it burned his tongue. Bakura choked; he tasted pain and red and something else, metallic and vile... _gold._

The little thief closed his eyes and swallowed. The fires of Kul Elna, waiting and simmering, burst into life inside him.

Bakura whimpered, clenching his small hands in the sand, and slowly lowered his lips to the rippling red puddle; he kissed the surface lightly, opening his mouth for another taste.

"_What are you doing!_"

Bakura whirled around.

"Oh, my _god._ What are you thinking? I know you can control these dreams!"

"What else is there to drink?"

"I made breakfast!"

Bakura let himself be dragged out of the dream, through his soul room, and into his temporary form. Licking his lips, the thief king glanced about the kitchen, and was pushed into a chair by his trembling other half. Shaking from head to foot, Ryou darted about the kitchen, moving entirely too fast; it was a true miracle that he didn't break anything. He gathered a small stack of pancakes onto a plate and dropped it in front of Bakura, filled a glass of orange juice and dropped that in front of Bakura too, and set about finding the syrup. When he found that, he practically slammed that down before the spirit, and then turned away.

Ryou leaned on the counter, head bowed, eyes shut tight. "Oh, my god. My _god. What _was- What were you _thinking? _What are you, a vampire? My god..."

"You can't change the past, host. I drank every drop of blood that the Pharaoh's servants had spilled in the sands," Bakura said coldly, pouring the syrup.

"_Why?_" Ryou demanded.

"It was a gift." The thief smiled. "The only gift they ever gave me."

Ryou about-faced, pale and frightened, and stared at Bakura. The Egyptian spirit simply ate his breakfast, wearing an expression of purest ice. Finally, the boy sat down across from his dark self, clenching his fists in his lap. "I don't understand," Ryou muttered.

"Don't even try." Bakura's pancakes were soaked with syrup, limp and floppy when he speared them with his fork. "I didn't like the taste, if it makes you feel better. This syrup is better. I wasn't a vampire. I _hated _it."

"I know," Ryou whispered. "I... just..."

He trailed off. Bakura stopped eating and arched an eyebrow at him. "... I love you, Bakura."

The thief's mahogany eyes softened. "It's all right, Ryou. That was long ago."

"It's still there," the boy said, staring at the tabletop.

"I..."

But how did you argue with the truth?

"You're right..." he said, his voice sadder than Ryou had ever heard it. "I can't let it go. I can't let them go. Ryou, I... if there was any way... I won't let you go!"

Ryou looked up; chocolate eyes met those the color of black tea. "Don't let go," Bakura hissed. He took the boy's arm in his grip, and pulled Ryou closer to him. "Don't _ever _let go of me."

"I w-won't." The sudden change in Bakura was alarming; he had switched from downtrodden to obsessed in a matter of seconds. They were kissing before either of them realized it, passionately and desperately.

"Never?"

"... never..."


	8. a kind of tavern brawl

They heard his footsteps, but couldn't see him. Bakura allowed himself a small, predatory smile, like a wicked witch's cat; he was moving stealthily, so they barely even had their ears to rely on. With the great serpent's tail coiled around him, the invisible bulk shielding him from human eye, Bakura was unstoppable. It wasn't long before he'd left the guards behind, and he held back a laugh at their perplexed faces. As if strengthening the guard around the city could keep even a mediocre thief out- let alone the king of _all _thieves!

Bakura chose his target carefully. He was cunning, even on an empty stomach, even when he'd been traveling through the desert for a day and a half- and even when he'd fallen into a (supposedly) bottomless pit prior to that. He crouched by the door of a tavern, watching with interest to see what manner of people emerged. After half a dozen citizens had walked passed him, some tipsy and some obviously drunk, he summoned the serpent back into his soul and stepped inside.

The smell of alcohol was strong in the air. The thief gave a soft, cold chuckle at that; drunks were so easy to manipulate. They wouldn't remember him at all after this night; and if they did, well, it wouldn't take him more than a day to hunt them down later. Bakura reached deep into the pocket of his robe and located a golden bracelet, which he tossed onto the countertop. "Here's your pay," he growled at the barman. "Now bring me food. Lots of it!" He was too hungry to be choosy about _what _he ate.

"Y-yes, sir! Right away!" The barman seized the bracelet, staring at it with wide eyes. Bakura saw his lips part and form the words _solid gold _silently; ignoring this, the thief went and sat at an empty table in the middle of the room. There was much drunken partying going on, likely in celebration of his 'death'. Much as he disliked the idea, it was to his advantage; perhaps his exchange with the barman had gone unnoticed.

Several plates were delivered to his table, piled high with food; Bakura's usually stoic gaze went warm and delighted, and he seized the nearest fruit without even looking at what kind it was. Blindly, he stuffed his mouth, chewing as rapidly as his jaws would go, repeatedly biting his tongue by accident. After the first mouthful, he slowed down somewhat, but kept eating hastily. Nothing had tasted so good in his _life... _Nearly hugging himself with delight, the thief basked in the glory of his feast.

It wasn't altogether surprising that he attracted a bit of attention.

It was slightly more surprising that someone had been watching him since he had come in, but Bakura was prepared to deal with that, too. He was oblivious of the newcomers until they had surrounded him, each holding something sharp and pointy. "Got a lot of money on you, don't you?" chuckled one of the thugs, toying with his knife. "Care to share?"

"Want to die?" Bakura whispered, grinning.

The men blinked at each other, before closing in. The thief's eyes narrowed to slits of angry violet, but he didn't move; the cold metal of the Millennium Ring burned hot against his chest, and a wave of blood exploded outwards from him. The tavern was cut down; the barman, admiring his golden treasure, fell dead in two halves. Bakura sat amongst the wreckage and laughed. He let his head fall back, almost choking the sound as his throat strained; he laughed and laughed, wild and hysterical.

It was a long time before he stopped, his stomach gurgling angrily. The thief king seized a piece of meat in one hand, letting the other hand slip down and touch the Ring lightly. It was hot and cold to his touch, fire and ice. It was reassuring, knowing that the object of his power was just there, within his grasp. Nothing could touch him now... the priests had been powerless against him, even when it was seven items to _none. _

_Damned Pharaoh_, Bakura thought flatly, and went back to his meal.

He was only partially finished when he heard the lightest, most muted footsteps in existence; none could step so softly except for one. Himself. And that answered the question as to who it was...

Yami no Bakura looked up, his gemstone-clear eyes following Ryou's progress across the room; the boy was not so squeamish anymore, stepping carefully between rivers of blood and surveying the mutilated bodies with something akin to sadness. There was no disgust visible in the lighter half's face, just pity. "At least you're not eating them," Ryou said, reaching the thief's side. "I half expected you to."

"I wasn't a vampire, and I wasn't a cannibal," snapped the darker half.

Ryou flinched under Bakura's angry stare, mumbling an apology or two. "May I sit?" he asked.

"Yes. And have some." Bakura took another bite and winced. "I think the thief king managed to eat all this, but obviously it was a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. Help me?"

The boy smiled, relaxing at the spirit's unusual good humor and taking a seat. He rather hesitantly tried a bit of the flat bread, and found the taste to be quite bearable. Bakura picked at the remaining food, whilst Ryou wolfed down a plateful. "You are all right, aren't you?" Ryou asked, between bites. "You've had these dreams so often now."

"They're just memories. I can barely feel anything; I doubt it'll hurt much, even when I die."

"When you what?" the lighter half cried, unintentionally spraying a few crumbs.

Bakura spared him an annoyed glance. "I _died _to seal myself in the Ring; I was dying anyway. What did you _think _happened? I dragged the Pharaoh's corpse around for awhile, defiled tombs, and the punishment for such crimes was death or worse. By the time I found the Ring, Yami no Yugi would have given his kingdom for the chance to kill me."

"Oh."

Then there was silence.

"I think I'll go back to bed," Ryou said.

"I will, too," Bakura agreed, only to see the look of relief on the boy's face. "Good night, Ryou."

"Good night, Bakura." Ryou kissed him on the cheek as he got up to leave. He paused. "I think, technically speaking, it's the morning now."

Bakura glared. "Go to bed! You have school in the, er, morning."

Ryou grinned, and skipped past the dead bodies on his way out.


	9. if only

Ryou ran.

He ran as fast as he could, hair streaming behind him; he had left the museum behind, and so he sped up even more. He tore down side streets and dirty, glass-littered alleys, anywhere he knew that no one would get in his way. It hurt to breathe before he stopped, falling to his knees in the gravel and sobbing hoarsely. "I hate you!" he screamed, tears streaming down his cheeks.

For an instant he was alone; then Bakura appeared beside him, glaring down at the boy with a cold expression on his face. "I don't need you to be there, host," the demon spat. "Don't think you running away will change _anything._"

"I don't care!" Ryou's knees were scratched and bloody; one of his hands was bleeding, where he had flung it out to catch himself. "I was _wrong! _Don't rub it in- just _go away!_"

"Wrong about what? You thought I'd really pass up this opportunity? My goals haven't changed, Ryou-"

"I was wrong about you." The boy was crying again, his nose dripping and face stained silver. He couldn't look at the spirit; there was a sick, twisted feeling in his stomach whenever he saw Bakura now. "I was _wrong. _I... Dark Yugi was right. You _lied! _You made me think you were good, or you had changed, or you were changing! But look at you! _Look at you! _You're so evil I couldn't even try to go looking for him..."

"He hates me," Bakura snarled. "For a damn good reason, but that's the facts. The damn _Pharaoh _hates me! That's why I can't go into his memories! Except I _can, _and I will." He growled as Ryou looked up in alarm, opening his mouth to speak; he cut the boy off before he could begin. "You can't stop me. Don't even try, my _weaker self._"

Ryou cringed. Bakura turned away from him, a shard of glass crunching under the toe of his shoe. The silence stretched between them, Bakura fuming and Ryou crying silently. "I know it hurt," Ryou said thickly, at last, his voice cracking slightly, "seeing what they did to Kul Elna. But you said that was... in the past. Can't you... let go?"

Bakura's fists clenched; Ryou plowed blindly on. "I don't mean to say the pharaoh didn't deserve it. I don't mean that everyone hasn't been horrible to you in this time, too... and I don't mean you haven't _deserved _it... but it's destroying you! You won't last long like this! Everyone's against you, except me. They won't understand!"

"If the pharaoh goes back, he'll see Kul Elna," Bakura said flatly.

"But he won't _understand!_" Ryou almost screamed again. "No one knows you the way I do. Dark Yugi is- is- an arrogant pig! Or he was, if your memories were anything to go by! Any fool could see that you weren't raiding tombs and defiling mummies just to be obnoxious, or just to survive. It doesn't take an idiot to see that you _hurt._"

"Shut up." The spirit threw his lighter half an empty glare. "You can't change the _past_, host. And you can't change the future, either! I know what is to come. Nothing will stop me. The pharaoh will learn, soon, that this is beyond his ability to combat. Fate has foreseen my victory."

Ryou laughed weakly, in between sobs. "You've been talking to Ishizu too much, Bakura."

Bakura snorted. "Ishizu! She and her darling little brother wouldn't do anything for me. I don't mean _her _pathetic little habit of seeing the future. Besides, pharaoh has the Tauk now."

"Dark Yugi will defeat you," the boy said sadly, "he always does."

"He is powerless already, trapped in the world of Memory!" Bakura laughed.

"He'll defeat you," Ryou repeated, staring at the ground with slightly crossed eyes. Bakura's confidence faltered for a moment.

"And what makes you so sure of that?"

"He _always _does."

"HE WON'T!" Bakura shrieked. "DAMN IT, RYOU, I'M NOT COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT! I CAN KILL MY OWN ENEMIES! AND IF I CAN'T, YOU SHOULD BE _CELEBRATING!_"

"I _love you!_" Ryou cried, finally looking up, only to see that Bakura's eyes flared wide with a furious hatred, red like the blood of Kul Elna, the embers smoldering inside his darker self. He had seen Bakura like this before- dueling a well-loathed opponent, seeing Dark Yugi, remembering some vile incident in Egypt.

But never once had it been directed at Ryou. The boy simply knelt, tears rolling down his cheeks unnoticed, and felt the scorching anger clash against him. It was almost a physical blow, and he trembled at the cruel force of it. He couldn't say anything, but he wanted to yell at the ghost, berate him and hurt him for being so _stupid._

"He. Won't. Beat me. Not this time," Bakura said, almost calmly. "I've been preparing for this ever since I was sealed into the Ring. This is the ultimate game. And this time... the pieces will not _cheat _for him." The spirit's teeth were bared. "There won't be any friendship to save him when it's his last turn and his last chance to save himself. Flukes won't save the Game King this time."

And Bakura began to walk away. Ryou stared after him desperately. _Please, don't! _he cried through the link. _You can't beat him! He doesn't win by flukes! I don't want you to die! I don't! I don't, don't, don't, I hate you but I love you Bakura, so so so so much and I want you here!_

Bakura paused. "Where?"

_With me._ Ryou lunged after him, shaking with exhaustion and wiping a hand across his eyes. _With me! What good is the darkness? _I _understand you! _I _love you! You can't leave me for- for- for the pharaoh!_

The spirit blanched, turning around. "Leave you for the-?"

Ryou tackled him.

They both went down hard amongst the shards of glass, Ryou giving a whimper that was muffled by Bakura's shirt; his arms, locked around the darker self's torso, were suddenly a mass of pain as the weight of two bodies and plenty of momentum landed atop them. But it was worth it. Ryou looked down at his prize, who was currently swearing and groaning and even more battered than the lighter half. _Don't leave me, _Ryou thought, because he couldn't trust himself to speak. He caught Bakura's lips in his with practiced ease, closing his eyes against the incensed look he saw forming on the spirit's face.

"... don't want to..." Bakura breathed, slipping deeper into the embrace as he held Ryou. His pale cheeks flushed as a tingle of warmth ran through him, euphoria taking the place of pain. He'd been cold... like ice cream under the sun, he found himself melting. The source of the heat was above him, pressing him hard into the ground, placing kiss after kiss on his lips. _If I could stay forever... if only I could make you... mine... _

"Stay," the boy begged, shifting one hand up the spirit's back and winding his fingertips in the long white hair. "Stay with me. I understand. I'm the only-"

Bakura rolled over, releasing Ryou's arms but pinning the boy to the ground; he silenced the boy with a hand over his mouth, although he could think of more preferable of making Ryou be quiet. _Stop_, he snapped at himself. _One more kiss, and I don't know..._

"If only, Ryou," Bakura whispered. He couldn't resist, sinking into one more- one _last _kiss. It took every bit of his coldness, every bit of his hatred to pull away, and he couldn't face the pleading brown eyes. Bakura yanked free of Ryou's embrace and stepping back. "If _only._"

And, as fast as he could, Bakura ran.


	10. what wasn't supposed to happen

It was a long time before Ryou saw Bakura again.

The spirit had fled from Ryou as though all the hounds of hell were behind him; he'd simply disappeared, and even when he cried through the mind link Ryou hadn't been able to find him. So he'd gone home, because there was nothing else to do. Bakura had gone into the Millennium Puzzle.

Ryou knew he should be feeling something very different. Apprehension, fear, hope... he should be wondering what was happening to his friends in the World of Memory, praying that Bakura didn't hurt anyone, and being afraid that Bakura would win. The final battle between good and evil was going on somewhere beyond his reach. Everyone and everything he cared about was supposed to be at sake. It should have been a matter of great importance to him.

Instead, he felt dreamy. Not in the most unpleasant of ways, either. He was sprawled on the couch in his apartment, a glass of ice water on the coffee table before him, watching an episode of some random cartoon. It was American- or, at least, something dubbed into English- so he didn't understand much of it, but his teacher would have been pleased. He actually recognized a word here and there.

An hour or two passed. Ryou got up for a few minutes, in order to refill his glass, add more ice, and find some cream puffs. Then he set himself up in front of the television again. The cartoon was long over; he flipped channels until he was watching the news. The voices were bland and flat enough that it was easy to ignore them; Ryou rolled onto his back and ate, staring at the ceiling. A few crumbs went down his shirt, and he slopped a bit of his water onto himself, but he couldn't really bring himself to care.

Once in awhile, he thought of his friends. Yugi, cheerful and shy; Anzu, proud and loyal; Jounouchi, kind and brave; Honda, supportive and protective; Otogi, smug and loudmouthed; Kaiba, arrogant and fragile. He saw their smiling faces, bidding him farewell as he hurried home; he saw their faces, twisting in fear; and he saw _one _face, with proud gold-red-black hair and brilliant crimson eyes, staring him down. Dark Yugi barely noticed Ryou when Bakura was around; the hatred between them hung in the air, even on the rare occasions when they weren't exchanging insults and shouting threats. _Who am I supposed to be rooting for? _Ryou wondered dully. _The one I love, or the one _they _love?_

_Do I have any choice in the matter? Would they still like me if they knew that I'm closer to Bakura? Would they still like me if they knew I've forgiven him? Am I still their friend, if I really love him...?_

His cream puffs were a bit stale. Ryou muted the television while he got up and got some more water, more ice, and cooked up a bowl of instant ramen. The hot noodles scorched his throat; he finished three cups of water along with them, drinking two sips for every chopsticks' worth of ramen.

_I really should start worrying about my friends._

He put his dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, filled up the glass of water again, found some ancient licorice whips, visited the lavatory, and settled down on the couch again. He felt like he was procrastinating on homework- wanting and needing to get it done, but so distracted with other things... like nothing. Ryou stared up, sipping the ice water sparingly. He didn't even want to get up at this point.

They had rushed bravely into danger, purely for the sake of friendship.

_Idiots_, Bakura would have said.

Mmm... Bakura. With Bakura lay the heart of Ryou's inability to be worried. As far as Ryou was concerned, little else mattered. _His _Bakura- not the tomb-robbing, Pharaoh-pestering Bakura- the Bakura who was a monster in the presence of Dark Yugi, scars and old fire on his own, and melting snow in Ryou's arms.

Ryou breathed in. He thought he could feel Bakura somehow, as if the spirit had somehow imprinted himself in the very air here. No- imprinted himself on Ryou, because the feeling that Bakura was there wouldn't go away no matter where Ryou went. Not that he _wanted _Bakura to leave. Sniffing at the air, Ryou smelled cream puffs and the kind of clear nothingness that is the scent of water.

He could see Bakura in his minds eye. The spirit was there with him, as he had been in the alley, pinned and unable to run away. Ryou knew very well that Bakura would have given anything to stay, but Bakura had fled anyway.

It was curiously floaty. Ryou closed his eyes; _locking lips with the Egyptian ghost, pressing him into the street, feeling hot and cold all at once_. A vague, pleasant feeling prickled at him everywhere, and he couldn't help smiling dreamily. Beautiful broken Bakura...

And a strange sensation swept through him; a powerful shock, shaking his mind loose of its pleasure-dazed thoughts. Abruptly, Ryou realized that the Ring was once again home to a certain spirit.

He tensed, as the pointers on the Ring rose and waved slightly, before shivering and falling still. The metal was warm to the touch when Ryou reached down to grasp it; the link between the spirit and the boy was suddenly there, stronger than ever. _Bakura! _Ryou called.

No reply. Ryou frowned. _Come out, or I'll come in._

_Bakura? Hello? I _am _coming in there. _Ryou gripped the Ring firmly, lay back, and shut his eyes. When he opened them, a familiar blue-and-white space came into focus- Ryou's soul room. The boy paid little heed to his surroundings, wrenching open the door and stalking out into the hallway.

Bakura's door acted as though it was rusted. Even twisting the doorknob took some effort, and it was a good five minutes before he managed to pull the door open. It screeched and whined, setting his teeth on edge; the hinges squealed. But the door stood open, and Ryou stepped inside.

Everything was black, as though Bakura had dipped a brush into the night sky and painted everything midnight. Ryou stumbled forward a few paces, before drawing himself up and looking around uncertainly. The little rectangle of light cast by the open door was no help, but he knew where everything was in here. That didn't prevent him falling over at least four things on the way, but he knew where Bakura would be.

At last, Ryou tripped over yet another treasure chest and collapsed onto the massive heap of soft and fluffy things that Bakura called a bed. Ryou clambered awkwardly up the pile and perched there, feeling the reassuring cold of another's presence beside him. "How are you?"

"How come you're always damn right?" Bakura growled. A stab of red pierced the darkness for a moment, but it faded to black. "Where is it _written _that I'm always wrong?"

"You're not," Ryou said automatically. He paused. "Why do you think you are?"

"I'm always on the _wrong _side. Never mind that it's their opinion, not _mine-!_" Bakura's voice rose shrilly. "Righteousness and happiness for everyone! That's what the pharaoh wants!" Bakura was silent for a moment, before giving an angry noise and edging closer to Ryou. "He won. He's damn _invincible. _I don't know how he does it, and I don't _care. _I can't fight him."

"You're alive." Ryou sounded surprised. "And he won?"

"Pharaoh and his damned mercy. Pharaoh and his damned _pity!_ He can't even begin to comprehend what my life was like in Egypt, but he has to keep up his image of wonderful pharaoh, kind and blessed son-of-the-damn-gods pharaoh. I'd let him kill me," Bakura snarled, "if it'd tarnish his reputation one _bit_, but they're all ready to forgive him, his stupid mortal followers! They hate me anyway!"

"I said you should have stayed," Ryou reminded him. Bakura was right beside him now; the boy's arm snaked out and looped around his shoulders. "I told you, I'm the only one."

"When did you get so relaxed?" the spirit demanded.

"I've had all afternoon to calm down."

"I was wrong again, wasn't I?" His voice was bitter.

"Hmm?"

"I thought this would be the end of the world, either way." Bakura leaned against his lighter half, sounding frustrated as he continued. "I would die or he would die. It could have gone either way, and it would have made sense. It wasn't supposed to be _neither!_"

"And I was supposed to root for my friends, instead of you," Ryou said mildly. "Plans never go right around here, do they?"

Bakura made an affirmative sound. "Do you think it matters?"

"Things seem to work out just fine anyway," Ryou replied, and kissed him.


	11. the dreamer

Bakura sat against the wall in Ryou's soul room, arms crossed and head bowed deeply; he looked meditative and thoughtful, although he was far from it. The spirit's mood was closer to a deep sulk, though he wouldn't admit that.

Ryou's room was comfortable. Everything was soft and pliable, much like the boy himself; the walls would mold to the shape of Bakura's back when he leaned against them, soothing away the tension in his muscles with gentle support. Much like Ryou. That made sense, Bakura thought reluctantly, since it _was _Ryou's soul room; but still, it felt distinctly _odd _to have another person's personal space be so comforting to him.

The gently swirls of blue, white, and navy that colored Ryou's soul room had once made Bakura feel disgusted and ill; now, he found himself coming there more and more often, just to feel the reassurance and calm of the peaceful chamber. It was like being under the sea in a pocket of air; deep and slow and passive. The Egyptian's eyelids fell half-closed as he listened to the white noise of Ryou's soul; the tinkling of childlike laughter, far off in the distance, and the crashing of waves, and a strange thing that sounded like silver. The room smelled gently of white hyacinths in bloom.

Bakura didn't know what was wrong with him.

His own soul room was black as pitch. It was designed to reflect his heart, his desires, and everything that was a part of his life. That _should _have been comforting, more so than Ryou's gentle, unwavering light, but it wasn't. Bakura didn't _want _to remember his past as vividly as he had been, but he couldn't block it out when his soul room showed him what he was thinking. He should use his past like a weapon, use it to drive himself and use it as motivation towards his goals. The pharaoh didn't remember anything; Bakura knew that, and he was almost envious of that blissful ignorance. Dark Yugi didn't remember, and he didn't want to.

A part of Bakura did. Most of him didn't, but there was that little nagging desire for knowledge; in his experience, knowledge was power, and power was what Bakura wanted above all else. Except... _Ryou... _

So Bakura curled up in a corner of the boy's soul room. Ryou couldn't notice, as the Egyptian always left before Ryou came into his room; it did no harm to either of them. And it felt safe there. He could sort out some of his thoughts, without having the help of his own damned room; even better, he could deny that he was thinking of his past at all, and dream of sweet things in peaceful oblivion.

More often than not, he dreamt of Ryou. That was something he couldn't explain; he had loved many things, jewels and trinkets and once in awhile he'd thought that he loved some_one_. But he had never felt so obsessed with anything; never had he been so infatuated as to include someone on his list of 'things not to destroy when I unleash darkness upon the world'. The list should technically not have existed. Bakura was supposed to want everything dead and destroyed.

And then one night, he dreamt of all the darkness and power and destruction, and he dreamt that Ryou was there with him. The boy smiled and kissed him and stroked his hair; Bakura remembered feeling _proud_, proud and glorious, more beloved than he ever had before.

And then, one night, he dreamt of all the darkness and power and destruction, and he dreamt that Ryou died too.

And then, for the first time in three millennia, Bakura woke up crying. He barely remembered what tears were, but that didn't prevent them staining his cheeks and dripping off his chin, coursing over his face in streams of transparent silver. No one saw and no one was there as the king of thieves buried his face in a pillow and sobbed like a beaten child. Ryou was fast asleep, dreaming happily somewhere else; in the darkness of his own soul room, Bakura lay on his bed, unable to stop crying or force the images from his head. He saw wide, sweet, betrayed, crying brown eyes as they closed in death, demons and shreds of darkness ripping his body to pieces along with everyone else.

After that night, Bakura didn't want to see his past, or his future. The thief couldn't bear the truth, that he _couldn't _destroy the world. Not while Ryou lived in it.

He hid in Ryou's room while the boy was awake, and created his temporary form when Ryou slept. He wandered all night, even in the rain and the snow, climbing to the rooftops and just looking down at the city, so full of light. Days turned into weeks, and he never returned to his soul room in the Ring. He could still draw on the power of the Ring, though it was a little harder, a little bit strained- like trying to breath with his chin tilted back.

Bakura knew he was stupid. The Millennium Puzzle was the central Millennium Item; all the other items seemed to revolve around it, as it held the power of Unity. It was stronger than the others, and Dark Yugi had many a reason to want Bakura dead. If the pharaoh caught him alone like this, Bakura had no doubt that he wouldn't survive the encounter. That didn't stop him from wandering Domino City well past midnight, basking in the starlight that dappled his white hair with gray.

One night, Bakura dared to stay in Ryou's room, even when the boy had come in. The thief hid; how he managed to hide in such a bright, wide space was anyone's guess, but he had thousands of years of practice. And Ryou never noticed him.

So Bakura stayed again. Ryou was a deep sleeper, and was quick to fall asleep when he entered the room. Bakura soon discovered that he could get up and wander the room when Ryou was snoring lightly from the bed, with no fear of waking the boy. Usually, Bakura was content to stay seated at the end of the bed, just watching Ryou's chest rise and fall.

The boy was more than an angel. He was worthy of worship; a thing of truly divine beauty, the blue light casting pale shadows on his sleeping face, coaxing a rare smile out of Bakura's cold and angry facade. The darker half crept around the side of the bed, feeling a twinge of emotion that he barely recognized. An odd mixture of anxiety and sadness; Ryou was not quite innocent, but too naive to realize that he was magnificent. Ryou was a jewel; the sunlight made his eyes dazzling, his hair was like a tide of moonlight, and his face was everything sweet and delicate. Ryou was a god. Bakura could have knelt before him and kissed his hands and spent the days just telling Ryou that he would lay the world at his feet in an instant.

_Ask me, Ryou, and I will do _anything _for you._

Bakura made himself go back, all the way to his corner. Ryou was all too pure, in a way; he wouldn't understand that his every touch made Bakura love him even more passionately. Maybe.

On occasion, Bakura saw a spark of something inside Ryou, something that could be considered teenage hormones; a little, hesitant something that reflected Bakura's desire. And then Ryou's angelic innocence would reappear, and he would blush furiously at some vulgar comment that Jounouchi made.

Bakura rested his head on his knees and closed his eyes, intending to sleep and dream away his thoughts. Before he could even begin to doze, however, he heard feet padding lightly across the floor. His head jolted up, and his bitter-dark eyes met Ryou's kind, heartfelt gaze. Innocent, lovely, godly Ryou. "Are you all right, Bakura?" the boy asked, sitting down beside his darker self, leaning his head on Bakura's shoulder. "You've been coming here so often."

"How the hell do you know that?" Bakura demanded, startled.

Ryou winced at the Egyptian's tone. "Sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to spring that on you, but... well, it's hard not to notice when you're coming here. Is there something wrong with your soul room?"

"I like yours better," Bakura replied, feeling comforted. His head rested against Ryou's. "Is it any wonder, considering mine's a hellhole? I wish the damn thing didn't reflect me _that _well."

"I'm not sure it does," the lighter self said. He smiled. "You're dark- you have to be, we're yin and yang- but there's still that little bit of light, isn't there?"

"Yes..."

"See?" Ryou looked around his own bright, cheerful room. "There's some of this in you. And I feel you... in myself. Just a bit, and it's odd to explain, but... the darkness is a part of me, too. That's why there's the corridor between us, joining our souls. Remember when I told you we were gray, not black and white?"

"You were right," Bakura sighed into Ryou's hair, ruffling the white strands. "Beauty..."

"Does that make you my beast?" Ryou wondered; he felt Bakura cringe slightly, thinking that the boy was frightened of him. "My handsome prince in disguise, perhaps..."

"Ryou?" The boy had slipped his head out from beneath Bakura's and was getting to his feet. Ryou smiled, touching the dark spirit's face lightly; the kiss they shared was soft and playful, and the boy moved away a moment later.

"I have a test at school tomorrow." he explained, as he climbed into bed. "But come here. You don't have to be over there!"

"What?" Bakura asked, hesitant. Ryou grinned, making a come-hither gesture at the Egyptian. "With you...?"

"Don't try anything," the boy warned, as Bakura drew cautiously closer. "I have to get up in the morning."

Bakura got up on the bed beside Ryou; his hesitations were crushed, along with what remained of his personal space, as the boy flung his arms around him and pulled him close. Ryou nestled up beside his darker half, giving a peaceful and contented noise as Bakura held him. Bakura's grasp was possessive but careful; he was holding his most priceless treasure in a gentle hug, and he wanted it to last _forever. _

Morning found them both asleep, a pair of white-haired beauties lying side by side.


	12. moldy cheese, etc

"I love you. _So _much."

"So you've said," Ryou replied dryly. Normally, he would have been a bit more appreciative of the over affectionate spirit, but he had an armful of groceries and Bakura was showing signs that he might start glomping. "Please restrain yourself."

"I love you," Bakura purred, before disappearing into the Millennium Ring. Ryou started, glancing around wildly to make sure no one had been watching, and mentally chided the Egyptian for being so obvious. He received a long thread of compliments and affection in return. Sighing, Ryou grinned and went on. He hopped over the fence that surrounded the park, strolling briskly through the grass and hugging his groceries close to his chest.

"Bakura-kun!" The unusually high-pitched, constantly happy voice made Ryou jump in alarm, and he turned quickly; Bakura stirred, and then let out a low growl as he recognized Yugi. Yugi, of course, was not alone; walking elegantly beside him, clad in black and silver, was the great pharaoh himself.

"Hello, Yugi!" Ryou called, hurrying to join the other boy in the center of the park. "How are you?"

"Just great! Other me and I were designing our deck last night!" Yugi withdrew said deck from who-knows-where and flourished it proudly. "It's better than ever! Grandpa just got a bunch of new cards in, and he let us pick a few!" The short student seemed about to display the improved deck to Ryou- Ryou felt Bakura rouse himself, interested- but Dark Yugi swiped it. The piercing crimson eyes locked onto Ryou's and glared.

"Thief," the pharaoh said slowly, "come out. I won't have you looking over Ryou's shoulder every moment."

Bakura made an odd noise, like the mental equivalent of blowing a raspberry, and the Millennium Ring flashed bright gold; a second or two later, the thief king's temporary form appeared beside Ryou. "I don't suppose you wanted to see me, Yami no Yugi?"

"Go away, thief," Dark Yugi commanded. "The other me and I would like to talk to Ryou. Alone." He made a dismissive gesture in Bakura's direction. Bakura was very sedately reaching for his knife when Ryou patted him on the arm and jerked his head towards a nearby bench. With a growl, Bakura bared his teeth at the Yugis and stormed away.

"Yes, Yugi?" Ryou asked, smiling a bit nervously.

"You've been a bit distant lately, that's all. Other me and I were worried about you!" Perhaps Yugi did not realize quite how insane he sounded when he said 'other me'. "We knew that Bakura was back-"

"Can't keep him in the Shadow Realm for more than ten minutes. Don't know why I bother," the pharaoh interjected sulkily.

"-and we wanted to know if everything was okay with you." Yugi's wide, innocent purple eyes blinked up at Ryou. "He isn't... er... doing anything _bad _to you, is he?"

Ryou went red. "Er... no, no, no, no. No. He's been very... pleasant to be around lately. Really."

Dark Yugi peered suspiciously at him. "Why do you look like a tomato, then?"

"I d-don't. Do I?" Ryou swallowed. "Really. He's nice. Fuzzy, even. Like having a pet at times, because he climbs in my lap like a- er- a kitty...?" Catching the expressions on the Yugis' faces, Ryou hurried on. "Nothing to worry about. Except, you might worry, since he's homicidal. But only to you." Ryou put a hand to his cheek, just to see if he was as flushed as he suspected. Dear God, it felt as though he was running a high fever.

"We're just worried, Ryou, no need to be embarrassed," Yugi laughed. Ryou's ears went even more pink. Before he could respond, Dark Yugi growled like a dog that had spotted its most hated rival, and Bakura's hand was suddenly on Ryou's shoulder.

"Bakura, what on Earth are you-?" Ryou squeaked. Bakura's nose nuzzled into the crook of Ryou's neck, his arms wrapped around the boy affectionately. "Bakura, get-"

"Honestly, Ryou," Bakura said, a bit muffled. "I'm busy molesting you. It's what they expect me to do and, frankly, I like the idea."

"Bakura, please," the boy whispered. "I look like a- a- something very red! Get off!"

"Thief!" the pharaoh cried. "Release Ryou immediately."

Bakura's smile was a bit feral, especially considering that it showed fangs. "Mine."

Before anyone could react, Bakura had seized Ryou by the waist and pulled him, grocery bags and all, into his arms. Yami no Yugi yelled something in protest; the thief let out a giggle, and bounded away out of the park. Ryou lay limp in the Egyptian's grip, holding tight to his groceries and jolting painfully every time Bakura sprang over an obstacle. Which was often, since Bakura never considered taking the longer way around.

When they reached home, Bakura opened the door with his teeth (an interesting feat that Ryou couldn't see very well), kicked the door shut behind them, dropped Ryou on the couch, and bounced away into the kitchen with all the groceries. Stunned, the boy lay still and listened to Bakura putting the food away with much clattering and swearing.

For the third time that day, Ryou was quite startled, when Bakura suddenly shrieked, "RYOU! Why is the damn cheese _moldy _already?"

"It comes that way!" Ryou screamed back, getting to his feet and dashing into the kitchen. From his chair, Bakura waved a block of Cottswold accusingly. "Give me that. You'll _like _it."

Bakura reclined in his chair as Ryou put away the rest of groceries and set about making dinner. The doorbell rang as the boy was putting dinner in the oven, so Bakura got up to answer it. The battle cries broke out a moment later.

"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" roared Bakura.

"IT'S RYOU'S HOUSE!" yelled the pharaoh.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH RYOU?" wailed what sounded like Jounouchi, Anzu, Honda, Otogi, Shizuka, and Yugi all in unison. Ryou leaned on the counter, face in his hands, absentmindedly setting the timer for an hour. _Get them out before dinner's ready, please, _he called to Bakura.

_Your wish _is _my command, lovely darling host. _

"FRIENDSHIP!" bawled Ryou's friends.

"DAMNED RA-FORSAKEN THIEF!" howled Yami no Yugi.

"WATCH AS I SEAL YOUR SOULS INTO THESE MINIATURES AND MAKE YOU BATTLE THE EVIL LORD OF ALL DARKNESS! DIE! DIE!"

Things actually got very quiet, for a time. And then:

"YOU FORGET I HAVE TWO SOULS!"

"THAT'S WHY I MADE TWO MINIATURES FOR YOU, STUPID PHARAOH!"

"_HOLY_-!"

_How's it going, Bakura?_

_I love you. Give me a moment._

_Okay._

Bakura sauntered into the kitchen a moment later, a psychotic grin on his face. "They don't fare so well in Monster World without you, host! Stupid pharaoh can't cheat when you aren't there to seal your soul in things." There was a tense moment, as they both considered the last Monster World game that everyone had played. Bakura ended it by throwing himself on Ryou.

"Ow," Ryou declared. "They still have the power of friendship, you know," he added.

Bakura's eyes widened. "I hadn't thought of that." He paused for thirty seconds to kiss Ryou in double-quick time, and then ran out again. There was a small explosion. "FRIENDSHIP HAS PREVAILED!" crowed Dark Yugi.

"GET YOUR DAMN SOULS BACK IN THE MINIATURES!"

"YOU CAN'T PUT ME IN THERE! THAT MINIATURE'S FOR THE UGLY GYM TEACHER!"

"MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE CONSIDERED THAT BEFORE YOU _BROKE YOURS!_"

Bakura bounced back in, just as Ryou picked himself up off the floor and dusted off his pants. At a warning glance from the boy, he refrained from tackling again, but didn't hesitate to glomp him instead. Moments later, the two were quite literally inseparable; Bakura had climbed onto the counter, snuggled Ryou in his lap, tangled his fingers in Ryou's hair, and commenced cuddling him into oblivion.

There was another explosion. Ryou found himself sprawled on the counter, too close to the knife collection for comfort; he barely caught a glimpse of Bakura as the spirit tore out of the room. "DON'T TOUCH THE DICE!" the thief screamed. "THAT IS _IT! _MAN-EATER BUG FOR YOU!"

Shrieks echoed throughout the house, followed by the sound of the door slamming and a lot of loud banging noises. Bakura returned. Ryou raised his eyebrows. "Barricaded the door," the thief explained, very pleased with himself.

"Fine, fine," Ryou said amiably. One did get used to such things.

"Right. Before the stupid ugly insane slimy pharaoh destroyed my lovely figurines and permanently disfigured Zorc and poked my evil dice and brought his friendship friends into our house..." Bakura paused to remember what the original thought behind that sentence was. It didn't take him long, as this particular thought was never far from his mind. "... where were we?"

They grinned at each other. "The pharaoh says you're a bad influence on me," Ryou said cheerfully.

"I'd say he's right." Bakura quirked his eyebrows. "So come here and prove it."


	13. the inescapable past takes form

**Author's Note: **So sorry I missed updating yesterday! I went to a Valentine's day party and got home real late, and I was exhausted... and since I do most of my writing at night, I had no time to write chapter 13. Gomen nasai! Double gomen, more angst h3r3.

"Isn't it a bit silly to argue with yourself?" inquired the king of thieves.

"You're not me, and I'm not arguing with you," Yami no Bakura replied coldly. His head was bowed, red-violet eyes narrowed at the floor, white hair cascading down over his face.

The thief king seemed unimpressed. Reaching up, he scratched the crisscrossed scar on his cheek, watching Yami no Bakura imitate his movements exactly. "You just contradicted me," the past self pointed out. "I am you. We move the same way, we have the same goals, serve the same master... the only _difference _is that you have become _weaker_, my future self."

"What?" Bakura's head snapped up; the thief king met his gaze evenly. "I am not weak! I have fought the pharaoh far more skillfully than _you _were ever able to! I have returned from the darkness- not you! And yet a pathetic, long-dead mortal dares tell me that I am _weak?_"

"At least I never fell in love," the past Bakura said, watching with sadistic gratification as the Yami stiffened visibly. "You yourself have said that emotions are a weakness. Why, if the pharaoh was so inclined, he could kidnap your lover and hold him prisoner. If he demanded your life for Ryou's..." The past self smiled, striding forward and moving to stand behind Bakura, leaning against him. "Ooh... you would, of course, give yourself up. You would rather die than let Ryou be hurt. _Even _when you knew that the pharaoh would never hurt a friend of his...

"You still... can't... forget."

"What do you mean?" Yami no Bakura growled. The laugh that escaped his past self's throat was so cold, so maniac, that it self a slight chill down his spine.

"You _are _me," the past self purred, draping his arms over the Yami's shoulders and resting his chin in the crook of Bakura's neck. "Why else would you die for Ryou? Why else would you leap in the way of the Sky-God's blast, when you _knew _that the pharaoh wouldn't really do it? If the pharaoh was really fighting for the things he loved, he could never justify killing Ryou to further his goals. No, that is how his past self was... ruthless, one might say, or perhaps just foolish. Just like his _father_."

Yami no Bakura snarled. "He would. He would have done it. You know his eyes, the killer's eyes..."

"Did you see those eyes? They are a sure sign that he will attack. But his eyes are gentle when he looks at his friends. Weren't you peeking out, future self? Didn't you see, he was oh-so-worried about darling Ryou? He wouldn't have. Future self, you lie to everything. You even lie in your own soul room, to your own past. Don't they say that honesty hurts so much less?"

Bakura shrugged his shoulders, trying to shift his past self's hands, which were trailing lightly over his shirt; he could feel the slight tracks left by those thick, bronzed fingertips. "I... am... real," past Bakura whispered in his ear. "You are just... my _host..._"

"No," Bakura hissed. "No!" He twisted, throwing the past Bakura off balance; instead of taking advantage of that, he sprang back, fists clenched hard. "I am real! The past is gone, the future isn't worth worrying about! I am the present. I am _reality! _Me! _Me!_"

Past Bakura laughed again. "Future self, look over here." He gestured to one side; the Yami saw a small, glittery flash in the corner of his eye, indicating that the past self had conjured up a memory for him to see. He shook his head violently. "Oh, future self, you _like _this memory. As you say, it is yours, not mine. I must admit, even though we are the same person, you have changed so much." And the thief king smiled, striding over to watch the memory himself.

Bakura followed him reluctantly. He recognized the scene playing out immediately; it was a comfort, a memory that left him feeling soft and fuzzy inside, despite how he denied it. Ryou and Bakura's hands were linked; they were sitting in the park, side by side. The sun was sinking; the light that fell across their faces was brilliant orange-red. There was anxiety in the scene, a hesitation; but there was compassion, tenderness, love, lust, in the two pairs of eyes. Their foreheads touched gently, as did their noses, as they cautiously settled into a soft, sweet kiss. It was unbelievably sappy, but it still left Bakura very pleased with himself. That had been a good night.

The past Bakura rather spoiled the effect by laughing hysterically. Tears formed in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks as he shrieked and giggled with laughter, collapsing to his knees and leaning back. Yami no Bakura flushed. "What are you-?"

"Look at you," the thief king hissed, weak sniggers escaping between words. "Look at this! Oh, future self, you have made me happy again. You said once that I was useless in my lifetime, that I couldn't do anything right. I almost took it to heart! But look at _you... _if I had only known how much this modern life would change you... you're _pathetic. _A kiss by sunset! How _romantic! _You belong in the darkness." The amethyst eyes gleamed, still shining with tears of amusement. "You belong with Zorc and I. Not with this light! You can use the Yinyang to justify it all you like, but sooner or later, you'll come crawling to us."

"Didn't I do enough crawling during _your _lifetime?" Bakura sneered, cheeks a brilliant red.

"So you admit that we are the same person," the king of thieves smiled.

"No," Bakura said hastily, realizing his mistake.

"But we are. Come here, my other self." Unless Bakura was mistaken, there was something approaching tenderness in the thief's eyes. The past Bakura gestured him close; the Yami came forward unwillingly.

"I want the light," Bakura whispered despairingly, half-turning. "I want-"

His past self seized him in huge arms, dragging him back despite the smaller, slighter boy's struggles. Bakura screamed so loudly that the room echoed and hurt his ears; he kicked furiously at the thief's legs, and flailed his pinned arms as best he could. Even when he was drenched in the shadows, darkness dripping from his face like beads of sweat, he writhed and fought against his past, having given up long ago.

And then everything fell silent, with no sound but a broken whimper.


	14. moonflower

A sliver of light pierced the gloom. A pale, slight silhouette stood in the doorway, one hand poised on the knob it had just turned, blind as a bat in the face of the darkness.

"Bakura?" came his velvet voice, compassion rolling off his tongue. "Are you all right?"

Though he called himself the stronger of the pair, at the moment Bakura looked anything but. He was curled into a tight little ball, nestled into the blackest corner, his white hair limp and dead and grimy; the cold was devastating, wracking his body with chills, but he was powerless to stop it. It frightened him, with a deep and harsh clarity, to realize that he was no longer in control. Had he _ever _been in control?

"Bakura?" Ryou stepped forward, a luminous beauty in the shadows. "I haven't heard from you all day. Where are you?"

"Here!" Bakura said, hissing the word. The sound came out soft and feral, which was the desired effect; he knew that his speaking voice would have trembled. He unwrapped one arm from around himself and waved it gently, disturbing the gathering shadows like a careless hand disturbs dust. There was a gentle pressure, a warm grip on his shoulder, as Ryou appeared at his side.

"Bakura?" The boy's voice shook. "Bakura, stop it. It's cold in here... Bakura?" Silence met his words. Ryou slipped out of his jacket; he slid his arms beneath the Egyptian's trembling back and cradled him against his chest, wrapping the coat around them both. "Please. Please... please, oh _please..._" Whispering the word under his breath, again and again, he pressed warm kisses to the spirit's chilled face.

Bakura sighed into Ryou's shirt, making himself as small as he could just to feel the heat envelop him. Seeming to sense this, Ryou bowed over, curling around his darker self. "You're not so cold," Ryou said softly. "See?" The shadows in Bakura's soul room were growing subdued, muted shades of gray instead of the harsh black of moments before. However, Bakura didn't seem as pleased as the boy; quivering, he only nestled closer. An icy wind swept over them both, and Ryou's teeth chattered.

"Yes I am," Bakura murmured, deep and quiet. If Ryou's ear had not been a few inches away from the spirit's lips, he wouldn't have heard him at all. As it was, the fragile, half-shattered tone in which Bakura spoke brought a worried frown to Ryou's face, and he struggled to his feet. Carrying the silent Egyptian carefully, he headed for the door.

"We'll get you into my room," Ryou said soothingly, kissing Bakura again and feeling his companion stir at the contact. "You like it there, don't you? It's all right, Bakura." The spirit made a little contented noise at that, and the breeze grew a little warmer. Gritting his teeth at the weight, Ryou stumbled over the threshold and carefully nudged the door closed with his foot.

The hallway between their souls was an odd place; sometimes it seemed long, sometimes short. It reflected a mixture of them both; the wind was cool here, chilly but refreshing, and the carpet was gray while the walls were baby blue. The ceiling was a mass of puffy white clouds, gentle swirls of black gathering in the corners. Each step seemed to make Ryou's arms, already straining to carry Bakura, ache all the more; as he reached his own door, he had to put the spirit down.

But now, thankfully, the Egyptian had revived a bit, and stood beside Ryou; the air, ever-shifting here, made him sway slightly. Arms crossed, he simply waited as the boy rubbed his sore limbs and fumbled for the doorknob. When the door was finally open, the room spilled friendly light around them both; Ryou moved close to Bakura's side and pulled him inside the blue room.

They both felt the inside of Ryou's soul; even though they expected it, the sudden rush of coziness and light was vibrant and welcoming. The spirit crossed to the bed, gathering the blankets around him as he lay face down, eyes closed. Ryou smiled at the sight, joining Bakura amidst the mass of bedclothes; he stayed a respectful distance of two feet away, occasionally reaching out to play with the long, spiky white hair. It always amazed him how that hair could give the impression of being so jagged and sharp, but be so soft to the touch; it was like stroking a kitten when he ran his fingers over the pale mane. Bakura even purred a bit, and Ryou could feel him smile.

Ryou fell into a light doze, one hand resting on Bakura's head, his fingers absently moving through the Egyptian's untidy hair. A part of him still wondered what was wrong, but he could feel that Bakura had relaxed considerably, and just keeping him content seemed most important.

Bakura shifted very subtly, turning his head a fraction; the hand resting in his hair twitched, but Ryou remained asleep. The Egyptian's bloodstained eyes fell half-closed, taking in the boy's peaceful face with envy. He wished silently that he could have that beautiful serenity, those crescent-moon eyelids fletched with long white lashes, calm radiating from the passive boy. But at the same time, he considered that it must be a burden to be the purest light, particularly with Bakura as his charge.

It felt nice- snug and warm and safe- to be the darkness, wrapped in a shell of that pale, silken blue. "I love it here," Bakura whispered, his breath stirring Ryou's bangs.

The boy opened his doe-brown eyes and smiled sleepily, squirming closer; he seemed reluctant to move, brain still cloudy from his brief catnap. Bakura watched him, chin resting on his folded hands. It added to the way Bakura seemed curiously feline; Ryou laughed, pecking him on the tip of the nose. "I know."

"I don't like to try to think... in my own soul room," the Egyptian went on slowly, speaking quietly to the boy. "Everything reflects me too well, and I keep remembering things of my past- because they're similar to the present, because I want to refer to something of long ago, or just because. And I can't work anything out with that hanging around me.

"It's deep... the pharaoh and I are alike in that respect, simply because we're both part of our Millennium Items. It would be so much simpler if I just had my memories of you... even if I still had my grudges against the damn pharaoh, and I didn't understand it, it would be easier. It wouldn't be full of _things... _that I know and I don't understand..."

Ryou's face cleared as the spirit spoke; although he was still feeling warm and fluttery inside, his smile was sympathetic. "Stay here for a while, then," he said lightly, petting Bakura's head again. "I'll come back to your room with you later, all right? We'll see if we can make it brighter in there."

When Bakura just looked doubtful, Ryou drew him close and kissed him. "It doesn't have to be dark," he said comfortingly, arms around him again; Bakura hugged him back. "All right?"

"All right," Bakura echoed, and let the fragile beginnings of a grin creep onto his face. "Everything's always bright where you go, anyhow... it's what happens when you leave that makes me afraid."

"Then I won't," Ryou said, "until you can light it by yourself."

The sun shone on the moon, and cast the darkness down with rays of gold and silver.


	15. identity

**Author's Note: **This is the halfway point! Fifteen more to go.

He reached out for a long time before he realized that his hand wasn't moving, and it was all in his head. Then Ryou just stood there, and stared rather blankly at the doorknob. It was all that stood between him and Bakura. He should have been able to touch it easily, push it aside and go find the spirit. It had been remarkably simple to open the door of his own soul room, and even simpler to cross the hallway. His body did as he told it to, after all. So why couldn't he breach this last barrier?

Slowly, Ryou lifted a shaking hand and just rested it on the cold metal knob, feeling the chill seep under his skin. From the crack under the door, tongues of shadow overflowed and ran out onto the carpet at the boy's feet. He was sure that Bakura didn't know how much the darkness appealed to Ryou; his heart beat faster at the sight of the black and gray midnight, and passion sparked in him when the gloom reached down to engulf him. Like a thick perfume, it was intoxicating and heady; it made him restful, calming him when nothing else would. Ryou didn't know why he needed the darkness so badly, but that hardly stopped him wanting to remove the one thing standing between him and Bakura.

He pulled the door wide, going limp and dazed for a long moment as the feeling of Bakura's soul room seared him. Bakura was volatile; now the wind was freezing cold as it blew in his room, now it was so hot that beads of sweat formed on Ryou's brow as soon as he stepped inside. The boy reeled, thick black sheets of shadows draping themselves around him and knotting around his throat; the darkness was silky and smooth against his pale skin.

Ryou felt himself being watched; he couldn't see the owner of the eyes, and didn't need to. Unconsciously, he turned to face the being who was staring at him, and smiled because he knew Bakura _could _see him. There was silence for a time, before a voice spoke from one of the shadiest areas. "Ryou?"

"I can't sleep," the boy explained, moving out of the small rectangle of light cast by the open door. He pushed the door shut behind him, and then waited patiently, completely blind. He felt Bakura come near; the spirit's very presence was like a physical touch to Ryou, getting stronger and more intrusive as he approached. Ryou leaned into Bakura's touch before the Egyptian was near enough to be touching him; and when Bakura's fingertips did finally land on the boy's cheek, tracing his jaw idly, Ryou nestled against him.

"Being in here won't help that," Bakura warned, but he didn't give the boy a chance to reply. He carelessly swept Ryou up into his arms, and before long they were both curled up on Bakura's nest of blankets. Despite all the odds, it was warm there; even when the spirit's thoughts turned cold and his soul room bleak, there was a certain heat to the fortress of bedclothes.

Ryou made a wish, closing his eyes tightly and pressing his cheek to the Egyptian's chest. He whispered the wish to Bakura, and felt him hesitate, but was too happy to be considerate. He pleaded. An instant later, his face was resting against copper skin, and the arms draped over him were much heavier; Bakura's long desert cloak was spread over them both. The thief king felt the sand weighing down from above; they were sprawled in the golden desert again, and the wind had carried a layer of dust across their still bodies in the brief time they'd been there.

"This place is very cozy," Ryou murmured sleepily. He turned his head to look up at Bakura's face, and started upon seeing the hurt look on his face. Without a word, the tall Egyptian stole out from beneath the cloak, tucked it around Ryou, and walked towards the nearest building. Ryou sat up, and was about to speak when he noticed Bakura shrinking.

At first, it was just the height he saw changing; then the spiky hair grew longer, as the well-muscled limbs grew thinner and weaker. Compared to the towering thief king, the suddenly modern Bakura seemed pale and small. The wind practically tore at him, and his T-shirt fluttered around him. The spirit crossed his willowy arms, looking over his milky-white skin with careworn eyes. "Ryou?" he asked quietly, and felt the breeze rip the words away from him; his voice sounded even more delicate, carried to Ryou by a passing gust of air.

"Yes?" Ryou asked, trying to get up. The haziness of sleep hadn't quite left him, and the sands here were constantly moving; he stumbled and fell back down, the cloak splayed across him.

"Tell me I'm _someone_...?"

"I don't understand." Struggling to his hands and knees, greatly hindered by the constantly quivering desert, Ryou lifted his head and watched his darker self wither even more. Goose bumps rose on Bakura's exposed skin, and he hugged his arms around himself. But he ignored the way that Ryou's warmth beckoned to him, back straight and feet planted firmly in the sand.

"Tell me," Bakura began, and then stopped short. He didn't like how desperate he sounded, or how dull his voice came out when he had to grit his teeth to stop them chattering. Hunching his shoulders, the spirit looked down and went on. "I want- I need- damn it, I _want _to know I'm someone, not just a... a part of you... not just your darker personality, or whatever the pharaoh calls me. Aren't I...?"

_I feel like something different than you... wasn't I? You have to be someone else. I can lie to you, I can speak to you, I can hide in your soul when I'm too afraid to face my own, and I can't hurt you without hurting myself but that's just empathy... isn't it?_

"Is it just because I love you?" Bakura asked, curving over and shifting to stand against the wind; his thick, dark robes deflected the worst of the chill, although he still felt it in his bones. "Or can't I hurt you because I _am _you...? Or am I like Yami no Malik, a piece of what you felt but couldn't hold in, a _parasite?_"

Ryou was still trying to rise, with increasing alarm as he realized he literally couldn't get up. The wind buffeted him hard, so hard he collapsed; it sent sand swirling into his face unless he held the cloak over his face. Bakura went very quiet as he watched the boy began to cry silently at his helplessness; Ryou wanted to get up and comfort his other self, wanted it so badly that it hurt, and found that the desert was keeping him from moving. And that meant that Bakura's very soul was keeping Ryou away; and that meant that Ryou would have to use his words, but he didn't know what to say.

Bakura turned his face to the wind, and the cold jarred him. "Is this all I am?" he hissed at the desert, as if it would offer him guidance; his eyes were red and amethyst, the eyes of both the thief and the soul-stealer. "Is this all I've... _become?_"

_Am I worthless without my past?_

_Is that why Ryou likes it here?_

_Am I... better off being the long-ago myself?_

_Damn it, was he right... when he said...?_

Ryou's face crumpled in confusion as he listened to the spirit's thoughts, but he pushed that aside and lifted himself as far from the sand as he could without being blown over. "Bakura? Please, listen to me?" Cautiously, eyes half-closed against the billowing sand, he edged forward and reached out to touch Bakura's hand.

The Egyptian looked down at him for a long moment, expression clouded. His fingertips curled around Ryou's unconsciously; mutually in the dark, the white-haired pair stared at each other. Finally, Bakura seemed to realize where they were, and knelt in the sand, holding out a hand for the cloak. Ryou wrapped it around them both. "I can't stop it," Bakura muttered. "Any more than I can stop the cold."

"You're someone," Ryou said, his voice almost a whimper. Their eyes met, and the boy went on. "You're not the thief king, and you know you're not me. But you're someone. I... I don't know exactly... but you're important. You've made so many things happen." Ryou pushed himself up a little further, straining against the wind that nearly shoved him over; Bakura leaned over, so that Ryou could reach to kiss him. "Y-you fought Dark Yugi... you made me realize how important my friends were, by attempting to kill them..." The boy smiled. "You saved us, in the labyrinth. You caused trouble everywhere... you really gave everyone a run for their money."

"But all that, I did... because of the past," Bakura protested, brow creased, hands resting on Ryou's shoulders.

"The only thing you kept from your past was a grudge. And with your personality, you would have had a grudge against Dark Yugi anyway." Ryou kissed him again, a bit aggressively, and was rewarded with a slightly more attentive Bakura. "You're _someone._"

"An insane, self-proclaimed villain who doesn't know when to give up?" Bakura asked, returning the kiss.

Ryou just smiled. "That, and so much more."


	16. glitterdusted cheeks

"Can we go somewhere?" Bakura asked.

Ryou glanced up from his homework in surprise. "Er, what?"

"I want to go somewhere."

"Where?"

"Somewhere we've never been before." Bakura sat down beside Ryou on the couch, placing a hand across the boy's homework in a silent demand for attention. Ryou complied, setting it aside. "Somewhere that I won't recognize. Even if it's confusing and you have to explain every little thing to me. I wouldn't mind fireworks," he added.

"Well... hey, you know, there is a nice zoo. Would you like to go there?" Ryou suggested, shrugging indifferently. Bakura pondered that for a moment, letting the boy lean on him.

"No," the Egyptian said finally. "You've been there. I mean somewhere really new. Isn't there anything in this world that you haven't done, host?"

"Lots of things," Ryou replied. He saw Bakura begin to smirk, and hastily went on, "But I'm not sneaking in to anything obscene or illegal. We could go look at shops- or _not_," he amended, "you thief. We could look on the internet?"

"There are certainly interesting things to be found on the internet," Bakura agreed. Ryou's eyes narrowed, and he looked up; sure enough, Bakura had that certain expression on his face. It was a smile; one might call it demonic, but it wasn't quite. His lips curved like a wave, crashing down on a white sand beach studded with towering palm trees. There was always sun in his smile, and his eyes glimmered with the heat of it; there were rays of harsh light and the rippling shadows they cast; there were delicate human shapes, dancing on the beach, wearing little or nothing and laughing with the delicious seduction.

"We are not looking for porn, Bakura, interesting as it undoubtedly is," Ryou murmured.

"If you insist," the spirit said, his smile showing teeth. "Where can we go?"

"Where do you _want _to go?" Ryou sighed. "And why this sudden urge to go somewhere, when I'm trying to do my homework?"

"Because it's either this house or a soul room, and I'm tired of it all," Bakura said, slumping over on the boy and hugging him. "I don't want to go and look in my memories. I don't want to curl up and sleep on your bed. And I don't want to pace the house. And I want you there, wherever I am. I need _something _fresh."

"Well, think of something while I finish this math, then." Ryou pulled the homework back into his lap, and studiously ignored Bakura. Bakura did his best to not be ignored; he draped himself over Ryou like a cat, purred at him, petted his hair, tugged on his hair, and even made an attempt at tickling him. The only reaction he gained, even from the latter, was a bit of squirming and a playful smack upside the head. Reluctantly, he climbed off the boy and simply sat while Ryou did his math in tranquil silence.

At long last, Ryou set the completed homework aside and crossed his arms, shifting around to face Bakura. "All right. Have you thought of where you want to go?"

"I don't know."

Ryou groaned, putting his face in his hands and trying to brainstorm. For someone who wanted out of the house quite badly, Bakura didn't seem to mind being _in _the house so long as he was sitting on or beside Ryou. "I had a weird dream last night," the boy remarked, out of the blue, rubbing his eyes.

"What about?"

"Clowns." Ryou's brow creased. "It was garish."

"May I see?" Bakura asked. When Ryou lifted his head and gave the Egyptian a questioning look, Bakura explained, "I can see your dreams, just as easily as you can see mine."

"_There's_ a thought," the boy exclaimed. "Why don't I show you some of my dreams? I don't think you'll have seen anything from them before, they're very odd."

"My life was odd." Bakura grinned. "Show me, then, host." The Millennium Ring glowed brightly as they both moved to inside it; Bakura's temporary body disappeared entirely, and Ryou's collapsed lifelessly back onto the couch.

Ryou woke in his soul room, sprawled passively on his bed; he lay and watched the colors swirl above his head for awhile, then got up and went out into the hallway. The door to Bakura's room burst open, startling him, and the Egyptian himself scrambled out frantically. The door slammed shut, leaving the panting spirit to stare blankly at Ryou for a long moment. Then they both proceeded back to Ryou's room, without a word.

Ryou sat, cross-legged, on the floor beside his bed. With his brown eyes closed calmly, he looked simple and meditative, his hands resting lightly on his knees. He stayed like that for a minute or so, before blinking back to life and smiling over at Bakura. He beckoned; the spirit approached him, looking questioning, and gave an undignified squeak as Ryou pulled him into his lap. "Host-!"

"Shhh." The boy clutched his darker self, extending an unspoken invitation to the deeper parts of his soul. Bakura let his suddenly heavy-lidded eyes fall closed, and was lead down past the floor and into somewhere else.

All at once, there was _noise. _Blaring music rang in his ears; Bakura's eyes snapped open. There was glitzy orange and red and gold all around him, he was sitting in a seat, and he was one of a thousand people, and _Ryou wasn't there. _His breath caught harshly in his throat; he was about to stand up when the seat beneath him shook and roiled, tossing him a few feet into the air. Bakura landed hard on the seat's red velvet cushion, bouncing slightly.

There was a sound of trumpets, and his searching gaze was drawn immediately to the stage before him. It was decorated with hangings of brilliant scarlet, and the floor was made of something the jet black of hardened shadows; white spirals were painted on the wall behind the stage, edged in gold. Stepping lightly, the clowns filed out and bowed; spontaneous applause thundered all around the Egyptian, and he absentmindedly joined in.

The clowns swayed in unison, and there was suddenly silence. The audience stopped clapping, and whatever orchestra was producing the songs fell still; Bakura's eyes were fixed on the smallest clown, a boy with long white hair and a downcast face.

And then the music screamed to life again, and everyone began to laugh. The clowns were meandering around the stage; they seemed to be performing tricks, but Bakura was too far away to see what they were, or what was so funny about it. Once or twice the clowns collided, but that was all that was remotely amusing.

Ryou was dressed in a suit of striped black and gray, making his pale skin and moonlight hair stand out all the more; little red gloves fit tightly around his slender hands, and showed how bony his wrists were. His shoes had curled toes, like pigs tails, and his face had been coated with make up. His cheeks had been made paler and dark eye shadow applied below his long, white lashes; his cheeks were dusted with silver and gold glitter, making him look like a ghost. A large, proud jester's hat was perched atop his hair. Bells adorned his sleeves, hat, pants, collar, shoes, and he wore earrings with bells on them; Bakura heard him jangle as he walked.

He didn't know why, but he could see Ryou constantly, even when he stepped behind someone; he could hear the boy, even though he could hear nothing else. He forgot to listen to the music that was making his ears sore, and it felt as though nothing but Ryou existed.

Then another figure, dressed in Ryou's garb, sauntered onto the stage. This one was a girl, but a very young one; she had white hair as well, and her eyes were bright and innocent. She skipped across the black floor and kissed Ryou's cheek. The other clowns faded into the background as the pair of them joined hands and began to dance.

It was strange; half the time they seemed off balance, about to fall and hurt themselves, but they would just flip or roll or pull each other back, and go on dancing. The dance wasn't synchronized, but their movements seemed to flow together regardless; it was as if they instinctively helped each other. They bowed abruptly and hurried backstage while the dance still seemed only half over.

The other clowns came out and performed a few stunts, but Bakura didn't notice because Ryou suddenly slid into the seat beside him, flushed and wiping sweat off his brow. Bakura turned to him with an expression of fascination on his face; he reached out and cupped Ryou's cheek, touching the glitter lightly and watching how it shone in the seedy light. "You're beautiful," Bakura said, in a tone of slight surprise.

"Thank you," Ryou murmured. He licked his lips and swallowed, breathing deeply. "I know I shouldn't be so tired from a dream, but it feels so real, and I'm _exhausted._"

"Who was that girl?" Bakura asked, idly turning the boy's chin this way and that so that the glitter would catch the light differently.

"My little sister." Ryou smiled. "Amane. She lives here, I think." He glanced out at the crowd, unintentionally shaking off Bakura's hand. "It's not bad, as places go. They pay her well, and some of the girls take care of her properly. Everyone says she'll have a real career in front of her if she keeps practicing. And she says she will."

"She says all this in the dream?" The spirit raised an eyebrow.

"No," the boy sighed, looking down as he had when he'd first appeared onstage. "I just... I make it up sometimes. When you want to be alone, or when class is really boring, I just think of Amane living here, and... it's like she's my imaginary friend, and I'm inventing a place for her to live." His voice shook. "I sound childish, but she was only small..."

Bakura saw Ryou's lip tremble slightly, and kissed the boy's temple lovingly, as if to remind him that Bakura was there. Ryou couldn't get rid of Bakura, even if he tried. "Love you," Ryou mumbled, and huddled in the Egyptian's embrace as they watched the show go on.


	17. delicate taste

**Author's Note: Blame Tokyo Mew Mew. And the Kisshu theme song. My apologies for the blatant cracktastic-ness.**

"What is this dream?" Bakura asked, his breath fogging the glass that his cheek rested against. Ryou gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white; Bakura watched with mild interest as the skin above the bone strained and then broke, spilling blood slowly down the boy's hands.

The morning was gray, and the road that Ryou drove down was drenched in mist; the trees by the street were bleak, and their leaves lay in limp, sodden mounds. The flowers stood as tall as they could, glistening with dew but somehow lifeless. Bakura heard music playing gently, a haunting melody plucked on a melancholy harp; the radio seemed to be off, as dead and cold as the world all around them.

"I don't know," Ryou replied. He looked down for a moment, fixing his eyes on the crimson trails, and then returned his attention to the road. "It doesn't feel real, the way the others have."

Bakura leaned over, pressing his lips to the bloodstained flesh, his tongue flicking out to taste the familiar liquid. Ryou let him, feeling quiet and calm and stifled by the gray interior of the car around them. He didn't expect Bakura to lick him again, lightly, and then nuzzle against his hand; but he didn't move away, either. "What are you doing?"

"You taste like cherries and strawberries," Bakura said, his breath hissing; his lips were damp and rosy, and he kept kissing the boy's wound, as though it was a drug and he was dangerously addicted. "I know it's not real... it can't be real... your taste is sweet. _Sweet_, Ryou." He made a little, soft giggling noise. "I know you're perfect and special. Everyone tastes of gold and copper, but you're candy. Delicate candy, melt-on-my-tongue delicious, could be my obsession, I could drink _deep._"

Ryou felt somehow that he should object, but he couldn't bring himself to push away the strange warmth that flooded out of the dark spirit; Bakura was suddenly _not _cold, not afraid to burn up everything, and he was the sun. Ryou's left hand remained steadily on the wheel; he circled his right arm around Bakura and pulled him closer. Bakura needed no invitation to nestle comfortably into the embrace, and curving into a position where he had easy access to Ryou's lips while not preventing the boy driving; perhaps in real life it would have been impossible, but this was a dream.

Bakura kissed the boy again, and tasted cranberries on his lips. Completely disregarding Ryou's attempt at driving, he sprawled sideways into his lap, feeling his seat belt strain against this movement; he unbuckled it and wrapped his arms around the back of the boy's seat. "Sweet..." he murmured again, as though scarcely able to believe it, and leaned forward for another taste.

The dream was odd and faded outside, but their destination was an indoor affair, bursting with purple and silver and white; the ceiling was supported by towering arches, and little chandeliers hung from tiny, slender chains; they swayed and tinkled gently whenever anyone opened the doors and let in the slightest bit of wind. A small gale accompanied Ryou and Bakura, blowing them in amongst the other guests. Somewhere, people were laughing, but the faces around them were somber and lonesome.

Ryou offered a drink to a sad-looking young woman after he discovered the buffet table; she looked as though she was eternally in his debt for this one simple favor, and Ryou blushed quite profusely when she gave him a thank you kiss on the cheek. Bakura had disappeared, something that Ryou was quite glad of; he knew how much Bakura objected to girls thinking Ryou was straight. He tended to prove them wrong by kissing the boy, very passionately and in public.

While not a wholly unpleasant sensation, it was embarrassing.

Ryou stood beside the buffet table, sipping at a glass of juice that he'd just swiped; it tasted slightly tangy, and the aftertaste was somewhat unpleasant; it seemed familiar somehow, so he kept drinking, determined to identify it. The glass was only half-empty when Bakura returned; he was surrounded by admirers, and not looking remotely displeased with that. They were fawning over him, and one daring young man was carefully brushing out his hair; others were plucking at his inelegant clothes and looking disapproving. Those ones were also offering clothes that he could put on instead. Bakura waved them away.

"You taste better than any of that," Bakura whispered softly, and he dashed the glass from Ryou's hand; before the boy could voice an objected, before the glass even had a chance to shatter on the floor, Bakura had leaned against him and fallen against his lips again. "Never realized..." His voice was slightly muffled, buzzing in Ryou's ears because the spirit was so close to him. "I never realized... it was... so easy... to fall in love... and I never knew... mmm." Bakura licked his lips, and Ryou's, all at once. "Delicious host."

"What about you?" Ryou murmured, but quietly enough that Bakura didn't hear him speak. The great hall seemed to be hosting a celebration of some kind, and that was where the laughing came from; they supposed they should leave, since they hadn't been invited. The world outside was gray and black, a little of the fogginess from that morning being replaced with actual darkness that nipped around the corners at them.

A knife gleamed out at them, from the second alley that they past. Bakura's hand shot out between the blade and Ryou's chest; a moment later, the assassin lay dying with a slit throat, and Bakura was bleeding. The knife had struck through the palm of his hand; with a choked, painful noise, he tugged it out and flung it at the near-dead body of his attacker. Ryou looked over the thief's injury, half with interest and half with concern. "You have a macabre streak in your dreams," Bakura hissed; he located the knife, sliced a strip off of his shirt, and was about to bandage his hand when Ryou suddenly caught his wrist.

Bakura paused, seeing the strange, curious light in Ryou's gentle eyes. Ryou's lips were caressing his palm in an instant, like a mother kissing his child's little wound better; but there was something slightly deeper. Ryou tasted it, smelled it, closed his eyes and breathed it until he was sure it had to be a dream. "Chocolate," he said, as the blood dried brown on his lips.

Bakura's eyes, well-steeped red tea, were narrowed; his smile was dark, the color of infatuation. "Cherry-red," he replied, _this is what dreams are made of._

The boy took the invitation, and stepped forward to try the acquired taste of bloodstained candy.


	18. rigged games

**Author's Note: **Blah, late update... I really _am _sick this time. sigh And I'm supposed to sing in a concert on thursday... nothing to do but lie around and write, I suppose. I may update twice today, to make up for the lateness and relative shortness.

The room had taken weeks to design; it had plucked at the edge of his thoughts, forming slowly and sedately, every brick of the wall falling into place. Bakura knew better than to rush the construction of it; he didn't want it to fall apart, not when it was going so well. He imagined the smell in particular, and it came together sweetly; it smelt of sharpened pencils and lemon juice, the cold air making it sharp and strong. It smelt intellectual and proper. Tea was served in this room, black tea that matched the color of Bakura's eyes. It was served with a bite of sugar and a drop of swirling white milk, nothing more.

In the very middle of the room was a table made of stone, about two yards wide; seats fashioned of precious metals and softened with feather pillows stood on either side of it. And, at the end of three long weeks, Ryou and Bakura sat across from each other. A scrabble board lay between them, and they were counting out their letters. Bakura's eyes were sly and mischievous as he stared at his letters- E T U B Y A R.

However, it was Ryou who went first. He stared at his letters for a long moment, contemplating, and then laid out five of them on the tabletop: L U C K. "Twenty points," he said quietly. A piece of paper, pinned on the wall behind them, recorded the score.

Bakura looked at that with interest. Using Ryou's U, he spelled B E A U T Y vertically, and the paper took down his score as well. "This is a Shadow Game," he mentioned casually, picking out six new letters.

Ryou cringed. "I suspected as much. You're not going to kill me, are you?"

"This Shadow Game responds to the words in our soul, allowing us to draw the proper letters, even when it contradicts all logic. You were thinking that you would need pure luck to win any game against me..." Bakura smiled as Ryou flushed. "And I was thinking that you're beautiful..."

Ryou glared at him, glanced down at his letters, and calmly spelled out P E R V E R T on Bakura's E. The spirit grinned broadly. "You're getting the idea. This is much more enjoyable than leaving it up to luck... You'll never get the wrong letters in this version, or get stuck with too many vowels. I _have _been waiting to play this with you, so don't be so cold." Bakura added D A R L I N G, and the boy blushed a deeper shade of red.

"This is _cheating,_" Ryou said firmly. He drew, and then gave a squeak as he stared at his letters. "What is-? I wasn't thinking that! You've rigged it!"

"Oh? What have you got now?" Bakura snickered, leaning across the table. Ryou waved a hand to make him back off, flung the letters into the box, and drew some more. "And here I thought you were innocent, darling."

"This is cheating," Ryou repeated, avoiding Bakura's gaze. "I'm sure it is. Perhaps there's a _bit _of strategy in it, but... you took all the _challenge _out of it." He risked looking at the Egyptian, and gave another squeak at the way he was looking at him. "Stop _smiling _like that!" S A V O R Y, he spelled.

S W E E T, was Bakura's response.

S U P E R S T A R, the boy added, trying to keep his thoughts clean.

S E X. "_Bakura!_" Ryou wailed.

"Triple-letter score on the X, no less," Bakura purred.

Ryou glared at him. "You are _awful._" Keeping his eyes carefully diverted from the board, the boy considered his letters and finally placed four on the end of Bakura's word; it now read S E X T A N T. "It's a nautical device, and it has nothing to do with... the 's' thing."

"You are far too shy for such a wonderful kisser," Bakura sighed.

"There's a difference between kissing and... _that._" Ryou drew a few more, and then blinked. "Bakura... there's only supposed to be one K. How can I have just drawn one?" He pointed to the board. "I used it on my first turn!"

"Mmm-hmm." Bakura just smiled absentmindedly and spelled K I N K off of Ryou's N. The boy stared. "Unlimited letters. Otherwise, it would spoil the creativity of it all. It's a sad game where you have to spell kinky with a blank..."

Ryou considered beating his head against the wall, but settled for just burying his bright red face in his hands. "Stop. Please stop saying wrong things."

"Oh, and your friends are any better?" Bakura asked. "Jounouchi has some _very_ interesting discussions with Honda when he thinks you aren't listening, don't they? And Yugi's hardly innocent either. Frankly, I'm amazed you're so very shy, host."

K I S S. Ryou determinedly kept from looking at Bakura, at least until the spirit took his turn.

K I S S blank M E blank P L Z. "The only real use for blanks," Bakura grinned. "The Z is on a double letter, by the way."

"You can't do that!" Ryou exclaimed. "Would it kill you not to cheat?"

"I'm only expressing my thoughts," Bakura said, and watched with interest to see if Ryou's very flushed cheeks could get an even deeper shade of crimson. They could. "I said please."

"Fine," Ryou sighed, and stalked around the table to sit elegantly in Bakura's lap. Bakura just sparkled his eyes at the boy. It was truly alarming how cute the thief could look when he wanted to. "That also counts as cheating," Ryou said sternly, before snuggling up against Bakura and kissing him anyway.

_Cheating always gets me what I want. I win, _Bakura said smugly, and abandoned the game in favor of his prize.


	19. nighttime chocolate

**Author's Note: **Okay, my updating schedule is going to be temporarily tweaked... usually, I update around 1-2 AM, but mother is making me go to bed at 10:00 because I'm sick. So, expect updates from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, perhaps a bit later because I'm lazy. ;; Er, like today. YAY WEIRDNESS.

"Is this the place?" Bakura asked, perched on large piece of driftwood that was half-submerged in the sand. The beach stretched before him, damp and chilly; little purple flowers poked their heads from the gray turf, here and there, and seaglass was scattered far and wide. The wind howled around the ragged, crumbling bluffs around the beach, and tiny sand fleas hopped across the dunes.

"I think it is," Ryou replied. Both of them were wearing long, dark coats that fell to their ankles; even so, they were shivering and standing indecently close. The place was cold in the way that only a beach could be; a drizzle of rain had soaked through the sand, freezing any unsuspecting foot that might step upon it. The Egyptian was pale with the cold, rubbing his hands together for warmth, but his eyes were wide and curious and he hadn't yet complained of the chill. As Ryou rubbed his arms and felt goose bumps beneath his touch, Bakura just hugged his coat around him and walked forward.

"You know," the boy called after him, with chattering teeth, "I don't think we'll be seeing any wildlife today. It's too misty to see anything at all, even if there _was _an animal crazy enough to come out in this weather." Ryou followed his darker self, aware that Bakura wasn't paying attention to him. "Do you want to go home?" he yelled.

"_No!_" Bakura cried vehemently. He stood in the face of the waves, at the very edge of a sand bar, and listened to them roar as they crashed down; the spray scattered droplets of salt water across his face, and the tide surged up around his ankles. He had grown up in the desert; he had neverimagined the sand like this, heavy and thick and _freezing _cold. His feet made dents in the sand, and water swirled within them; the sea surged and snarled, like a wild animal fighting to get free.

"Bakura?" The voice came from near his shoulder; Ryou was bowed over from the cold, his hair flapping around his head, studded with glittering drops of mist. "Bakura, it's r-really cold out here. C-can't we go somewhere else-?" The Egyptian slid an arm around his waist and kissed the top of his head, almost apologetically, and Ryou felt a glow of heat at the contact. It wasn't quite enough to distract him from the cold. "P-please?"

Bakura stared out at the roiling surf unblinkingly, for almost a minute, tightening his arm around the shaking boy; then he dropped his eyes and nodded. Ryou didn't see the movement; Bakura just held him close and then turned away from the water, leading the boy up along the beach towards where the bus stop was waiting for them. It wasn't much warmer there, but the walls of the stop blocked out the wind and rain well enough. "W-we should have known better than to come on a rainy day," Ryou mumbled, snuggling close to the Egyptian

"I enjoyed it," Bakura replied. He slid out of his own coat and draped it around the small boy; he liked the bite of the cold, and it jolted through his bare arms like spears of ice. It reminded him that, in a small way, there was life left in him that was his own; he felt the chill sharp and undiluted, not in the faraway manner that he would if he was possessing Ryou. This was his own body, and the pain he felt was something of a relief. This was real.

The bus came in a few minutes, its headlights glaring a seedy gold through the mist and gathering dusk. Bakura and Ryou rose and hurried inside, feeling a blaze of warmth as they scaled the steps just beyond the doors which had, just moments ago, swung outward to admit them. Ryou paid the bus fee, and they found seats in the back. There were a few other people riding besides them; one or two travelers with backpacks, a frail old lady puffed up by her expansive coat, and several teenagers with iPods.

Bakura ran his fingers through Ryou's hair, noting that the rain had made it rather stringy and less soft. Displeased with that development, he commenced carefully combing it out with his fingers, ignoring the odd glances he received from Ryou and other passengers. Ryou's hair still _smelled _nice, of course; but then, it always did, a kind of heady and perfumed scent. He murmured so, making Ryou flush, as he gently undid a particularly difficult knot.

"Where are we getting off?" Bakura asked quietly, in Ryou's ear.

"Well, the last stop is near the Kame game shop," Ryou said, and watched as- predictably- Bakura went very still, and developed a murderous look on his face. "Perhaps we could go one stop before that and walk home. It's not far."

"No," the Egyptian growled, to Ryou's surprise. "I know what you're thinking. I'm not letting the _pharaoh _make us walk further than we have to. We're _not _going anywhere near Yugi's." He slumped back into his seat and fumed, until he remembered that he was busy with Ryou's hair and got back to that.

The bus rumbled along down the road; this beach was lonely and remote, and not often visited because of the unpredictable weather that surrounded it. The street that lead to it was full of potholes and gravel; the bus bounced and clanked as it became acquainted with those obstacles, causing Bakura's hand to slip and jerk Ryou's hair. The boy gave a little squeak of pain, and Bakura immediately halted his ministrations. Only when Ryou had stopped rubbing the side of his head and glaring at the spirit did Bakura go on combing out the white hair.

They were almost completely alone on the bus- their only companion was yet another teenager, who had his headphones turned up so loud that both of them could hear his heavy metal music- by the time they reached the last stop. Avoiding contact with the slick-haired teen, they thanked the driver and stepped outside. It was dark by now, the sky black and scattered with stars. "We should have gone earlier," Ryou sighed, trying to remove his hair from Bakura's grip. Said grip only tightened, and the boy gave up. "Well, I suppose we'll just have to deal with all the murderous gangs sneaking around here."

"How much money do you have?" Bakura asked promptly.

Ryou blinked, but answered, "About... a few thousand yen in cash, and I've got my credit card, why?"

"Because there's a place still open over there, and it _isn't _a bar." The Egyptian pointed to a small coffee shop across the road. "Hot chocolate?"

"Good idea," Ryou agreed. They crossed to the shop, which had a neon _OPEN _sign flashing in the window. Obviously, they were not the only ones who fancied a drink at this time of night; the store was crowded, and they were at the end of a long line before the cashier.

About twenty minutes later, after they had gotten a mug of cocoa each and a plate of cookies, Ryou and Bakura were perched on bar stools next to the front desk; they had just barely managed to snag these two seats, and many of the people still in line were glaring at them with blatant envy. Bakura found that he liked the rush of heat from the hot chocolate as much as he liked the freezing cold of the rain; although it was in no way alcoholic, the drink made him feel a bit fuzzier around the edges. Ryou looked the same way, his eyelids drooping a bit and a warm flush in his cheeks.

"Aren't you out past your bedtime?" Bakura asked the boy, with all the smugness he could muster in his present state. He was rewarded with a frosty look. Ryou wished he could threaten to make Bakura sleep on the couch; however, Bakura was quite liable to tie himself to Ryou's soul room bed (and Ryou didn't want to think about the implications of _that_) and refuse to move if Ryou made any such threat.

Ryou simply ate more than his share of the cookies in silence. He made the mistake of allowing himself to yawn widely, and Bakura grinned triumphantly. A moment later, Bakura yawned as well, his sharp canines giving him the look of a sleepy kitten. "All right, let's go home," the spirit said, after a couple minutes of Ryou nodding and drooping, sweeping the two cups and the plate aside with one arm. He yanked Ryou down from his stool, supporting the staggering boy, and quitted the shop.

It was purely due to Bakura's tomb-robber instincts that they made it home unscathed and un-mugged, the last of Ryou's yen still resting safely in the bottom of his pocket. Neither of them bothered to change or brush their teeth; Ryou collapsed on his bed exhaustedly, and Bakura disappeared into the Ring.

Ryou was nearly asleep in his soul room when the Egyptian came in, sprang onto the bed, and kissed him lovingly. Still feeling rather floaty from the effects of the cocoa, they might have fallen asleep like _that_, had Ryou not pushed Bakura off. "Good night kiss," the spirit explained, looking slightly injured.

"Well, give me a good morning kiss later, then," Ryou mumbled, the ghost of a smile settling on his lips.

"If you insist," Bakura said, and curled up beside his host for a good, long sleep.


	20. beauty of the yinyang

**Author's Note: **Agh. I had to sing in a concert yesterday (got over my cold just enough to do that...) and I had missed both dress rehearsals thanks to being sick, so I was scrambling about all day... sorry for the very late update. :(

"I hate you," Yami no Yugi declared.

"I hate you too," Bakura said lazily, sprawled in his chair. His eyes were closed, and he had donned a passive 'I am ignoring you' sort of expression, which annoyed the Pharaoh no end. It was supposed to. "But there's a difference between us. You're a high-and-mighty brat, and I put you down, which is why you don't like me, whereas I actually have a good reason to loathe you and your daddy."

"You've endangered everything I hold dear, tried to kill my friends, and caused me no end of trouble, and you're _proud _of it," the Pharaoh spat. "That is reason enough. Not to mention the amount of torment you've caused Ryou Bakura."

"Are you too impersonal to call him by his first name, or were you just doing that for dramatic emphasis?" Bakura inquired, showing two rows of sharp teeth as he grinned at his rival.

"I...? Dramatic emphasis."

"I have caused no lasting physical damage to my dear host," the Egyptian spirit replied calmly, one hand resting gently on the slight bulge in his pocket that indicated the dagger hidden there. "And none psychologically, if that's what you're so concerned about. I need Ryou in a he-supports-my-very-existence sort of way." So saying, he leaned back carelessly.

"No psychological damage?" the Pharaoh spluttered. "So trapping his friends' souls in game miniatures and telling him you only did so because he wanted it had no effect on him?"

"Nothing lasting, anyway. He's quite sane."

"The same can't be said for you."

"And I'd expect you to be _very_ sane if you were me," Bakura remarked. "Just because you'd have given up and died after the destruction of Kul Elna doesn't mean you have a right to judge me. You've stolen plenty of souls in your time... both of them. And what's your famous line, again? 'I'll never forgive you'?"

The Pharaoh crossed his arms. "Regardless, it's not as if you can expect me to let you go about and kill innocent people, is it? I can't afford to pity my enemies."

"Agreed." Bakura opened his eyes a fraction. "So, why are you here, and why haven't you tried to kill me yet?"

The two ghosts were in their temporary forms, both sitting in the doctor's waiting room. The walls were whitewashed, and there was a rack covered with ancient magazines across from their chairs. Said chairs were made of cheap blue and red plastic, and to most people they would have been considered extremely uncomfortable; to Bakura, who had experienced the worst discomfort that the world had to offer, the sensation of sitting in one wasn't even irritating. "Yugi's here to make sure his cold isn't anything serious, that's all," Yami no Yugi said, red eyes glaring.

"Ah, so it was your midget that got Ryou sick," Bakura smirked.

"He must have just come down with it, Yugi's only been sick for a a bit less than a week now." Yami no Yugi raised an eyebrow. "How bad is he? Or are you just paranoid?"

"Paranoid," the ghost replied easily. At the other Yami's surprised look, he explained coolly, "Paranoia keeps me alive, and I can't afford to have my host sick. Partially because jumping inside his body is one of my primary defenses against _you..._" His grin grew wider. "... and partially because, despite what you _think_, I do care what happens to the other half of my soul."

"Oh?" Yami no Yugi asked skeptically.

"Consider us Yin and Yang. Traditionally, it's supposed to portray the male and female half, but..." Bakura closed his eyes again. "This modern age defies tradition all the time, so why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't _we?_"

The other Yami made a little noise that might have indicated agreement.

"Anyhow, it's the bit about Dark and Light that matters. Yin, the dark self, that symbolizes the blight in human nature. Not evil, as your average close-minded man might assume... and, perhaps just to be a paradox, Yin symbolizes softness, gentleness. It's meant to be the feminine half.

"Whereas, Yang- the half that is traditionally _male_- symbolizes light and optimism, a more 'good' power, and also bluntness, coldness... Yang is certainly more unavailable." Something about Bakura's evil- albeit dreamy- smile made Yami no Yugi sure that the dark spirit had rather enjoyed making Ryou be available. "Yin and Yang have to be together. They just aren't complete without each other, and they compliment each other."

"I can't see you and Ryou looking cute together," Yami no Yugi muttered. Bakura heard him, and the Ring-spirit quirked an eyebrow.

"Want to bet?"

"Sure," the Yami said aimlessly. The waiting room was boring, but then, waiting rooms were never _not _boring.

"If I win, you give me the Puzzle." Bakura snickered.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," the other Egyptian warned him. "What do I get if you lose?"

"How about we just bet a few thousand yen?"

"Scared?"

"Pharaoh, you cheat."

"I don't!"

"Duelist Kingdom? The Labyrinth Brothers? 'One of my hands doesn't play fair, moo ha ha'?"

"They were cheating already!" Yami no Yugi protested. "And you helped me, so you're not one to talk."

"You cheated against me, too," Bakura went on. "In Monster World, you used your fancy dice tricks. And don't give me any of your nonsense about _me _cheating!" Yami no Yugi closed his mouth at that; he had seemed about to make a comment. Then he opened it again, but Bakura cut across him. "I was the Game Master, dammit. I think _most _Game Masters would be very pleased at the idea of brainwashed dice, and the fact that I was trying to kill you had nothing to do with that!"

"You would cheat if Ryou was at stake," the Pharaoh shot back. He paused. "Er... wouldn't you?"

"Of course. Before I tried anything else, most likely. Unless I could be certain that playing fair would work... which, around you, I usually can't."

"Hmph," Yami no Yugi muttered. "I wasn't aware you trusted doctors."

"I don't," Bakura replied. "Especially not after Egypt. The doctors in those days would ask you to say 'ahh' and then stuff a snake down your throat."

Presently, Ryou came out of the doctor's office, smiling quite brightly. He paused to withdraw some tissues and blow his nose, toss the tissues in a nearby wastebasket, and then walked quickly across to Bakura. "It's just a cold, Bakura," he said, sniffling; he was a little hoarse. "No cure for the common cold!"

"Good," the thief said, nodding contentedly. "Now, I have a bet with the Pharaoh here. His majesty has difficulty comprehending how adorable we are together. His pitiful imagination simply cannot visualize-"

"So _show _me," Yami no Yugi growled.

"Yes," Bakura confirmed. "Look cute, Ryou." So saying, he slid both his arms below Ryou, one in the space between his arms and his back and the other at his knees; with the skill of long practice, he swept the boy into the chair with him. Looking surprised, but not unpleasantly so, Ryou smiled and rested his head peacefully against the Egyptian's chest. It was times like this that Bakura truly _felt _alive, the warmth from his body seeping gently into Ryou's and his heart beating near the boy's ear.

Yami no Yugi twisted sideways in his chair to watch them with evident shock. He'd never seen the thief look so gentle; Bakura's hands were supporting Ryou's weight quite easily, and one of said hands was weaving deftly through the boy's silky hair. Ryou had an expression on his face that was unlike any he'd worn around his friends; he looked simply happy, at peace with the universe, a ship that knew it would never have to leave harbor. Every so often he sniffled slightly and shivered, from the cold, but that only made him nestle closer to Bakura's reassuring form. "How much yen were we betting?" the Pharaoh asked.

"Why not just take us out to ice cream?" Bakura asked lazily.

"Fine," Yami no Yugi agreed, and smiled. Ryou, apparently noticing the other dark spirit for the first time, blushed and hid his face in Bakura's shirt for a long moment. Then he drew in a long breath, sighed, and leaned up to kiss Bakura as passionately as a feverish and tired man could.

The Pharaoh blinked. What _had_ he missed? Quite a lot, from the looks of the rather intimately snuggling pair. As Yugi emerged from the depths of the building, a nurse walking beside him, the Yami was tempted to make him cover his eyes. But Yugi just imitated Yami no Yugi's reaction, staring at Bakura and Ryou, and then shrugged. "The doctor said it's nothing too serious. They recommended I take some Advil when the fever gets bad, though," he added.

"Do we have some of that?" Yami no Yugi asked vaguely. He was still squinting over at the other two. "We're getting ice cream on the way home."

"We do. Why ice cream?" The diminutive boy's brow crinkled. "Dairy in general isn't very good for you when you're sick, you know."

"Nonsense." Ryou had stopped kissing his Egyptian, and was frowning seriously at Yugi. "Ice cream is always good for you. Anything that boosts morale is good."

"Yes. Ice cream," Yami no Yugi agreed.

The walk to the ice cream parlor was thankfully short, but the two lighter halves huddled close to the spirits anyway; the wind was a bit cold. "What flavor?" Yami no Yugi asked the white-haired pair, as they were nearing the store.

"Chocolate," Ryou said, at nearly the same time that Bakura said, "Strawberry." Promptly, Ryou dissolved into giggles, and Bakura grinned.

"What have I missed?" Yami no Yugi wondered aloud.

"Quite a lot," Yugi said, and cuddled closer with a smile.


	21. breath of lullaby

**Author's Note: **All hail EBAY! I just got a really nifty mini-Millennium Ring pendant from a vendor in Singapore... -waves Millennium Ring with joy- It's really well made, and very detailed, and it'll make a great model for my Bakura/Ryou fanart. Hey, only nine to go! -dance-

It was light filtering through the shades that woke Ryou, the rays of purest silver trickling across his pillow as the moon rose higher into the night sky. When he opened his eyes, dapples of white and gray were playing over his pale face, shifting and flitting as he turned his head to see if his companion was awake.

Ryou's eyes, brighter and harsher in the vibrant moonlight, softened at the sight; with a look like a needy child on his face, Bakura was huddled close. The slender ghost's knees were bent, his hands and chest pressed against Ryou;s side and Ryou's outstretched arm serving as his pillow. Awake, Bakura gave the impression of a lean, muscled creature, thin but graceful, small but powerful; asleep, he looked petite in the way that a newborn kitten did. He was breakable, even moldable. Asleep, he truly looked like the pawn he was.

Ryou shifted, not enough to wake the pallid Egyptian, but enough that he blocked the shafts of moonlight now creeping towards Bakura. Even this slight movement was enough to stir the spirit, and Ryou went very still as Bakura twitched in his sleep, dark eyelashes fluttering. The boy reached with his free hand, running a hand down his partner's untidy white hair. If only Yugi and the others could see what Bakura showed Ryou carelessly. This face, so unlike what Ryou's friends knew of the ghost, and so unlike the spiked armor that Bakura wore instinctively.

The face was the color of cream, and its skin was smooth; Ryou's face, in a way. The nose was small and pointed, the chin angular, the ears hidden behind waves and curls of ashen hair. Bakura was nearly an albino, and he had been considered highly unnatural back in Egypt. The face was restful, eyelids closed lightly; but even so, he carried just a hint of hurt in his expression. Ryou knew where to look for it; the bitter curve to the Yami's mouth, and the way his eyes clenched a little more than most people's did, and the lines on his face. Bakura looked worn away, used and battered. One might expect that from someone three thousand years old.

But did one expect it from a man just twenty years old? Time in the Ring didn't matter. Bakura was young.

Bakura didn't know he looked like that; he didn't know that Ryou, now that he knew what to look for, could see it every day, at every moment. He felt it, day and night, a constant ache in the bottom of his soul; it lessened, to the point of fading away completely, when he was holding Ryou or nestled in the boy's arms. His past self made it worse, until his heart tore from the screams and his eyes stung from the smoke and his flesh burned from the fire seething within him. Kul Elna was angry. He couldn't even try to make up with Yami no Yugi, to end the mutual hatred between them, because whenever he neared the pharaoh he _wanted _kill him. He wanted to kill Yugi, and then himself, but not before he ripped the world to pieces.

The pieces would be afire.

Then they would implode.

And smolder.

And then they would burn down to ashes, bones and flesh flying on the wind, but there wouldn't be any wind because there would be no Earth, no sky, no Bakura.

That was what the village wanted, and because the village was his birthright he had to want it too. Except he didn't. He wanted to curl up in Ryou's room and watch the blue swirl with the white and gray on the ceiling and live his own life instead of haunting the world like a lonely, restive phantom. It was what he strived for, and what Ryou tried to help him obtain- to be _alive._

And here he was, trapped in the space between dream and reality. He didn't want Ryou to see it in his face, but the boy did. Ryou watched the still, cold face, his gaze tracing the shadows cast on Bakura's face; Ryou's bulk shielded the Egyptian from the moonlight, letting him rest peacefully in the darkness. Ryou sighed, continuing to stroke Bakura's hair; it was relaxing, and there was a look of true contentment settling into Bakura's expression. The harsh lines on his face had softened for once, and again Ryou wished that Yugi could see. This was the only time that Bakura could be happy- when he was alone with his soul, without a third wheel to make the pair of them awkward.

Ryou cupped the Millennium Ring in his hands, blinking at the warm glow that gleamed off of it; any light that fell on the Ring, or any other Item, turned to gold, as though the Ring simply couldn't be another color. He found himself wondering why they called it a Ring, when it was far too large to be fit on your finger; it had never been intended to act as a ring. The triangular plate in the center prevented it from being worn _around _anything; the Ring had to be hung around the neck. The five dangling spearheads that extended out from the Ring flashed and jangled softly, tinkling like windchimes as they swayed and collided. In away, the Item was much like the soul it housed; a little bit more conspicuous than it should have been, too flashy, sharp around the edges and smooth as liquid chocolate inside. Bakura, like the Ring, was nothing to be wrapped about anyone's finger.

And yet, you could mutilate the Ring, couldn't you? Pound out the plate of gold in the center, rip off the glittering pointers, and use it however you pleased. Ryou's hands tightened fiercely on the sleek metal, as he looked down at the unconscious spirit.

And Ryou knew that Yugi couldn't ever see this, and Ryou could never show anyone. He couldn't trust them, and Bakura was so easily damaged like this. This was the face of a boy, a young one, who had made himself grow up; he had hurt himself more than anyone else had. This face could be broken, or worse yet controlled; this face could be _changed._

So Ryou protected it, allowing Bakura to keep the walls he had thrown up, leaning over that sleeping face to guard it and keep away the piercing light. Placing a hand against the Egyptian's jaw and trailing it along the pale skin, feeling the way it curved and sloped gently, all you could ask for in beauty, Ryou leaned down and whispered softly, "Bakura?"

And for once, as the spirit heard Ryou call him into wakefulness, the expression of pure peace remained on his face. His chocolate-maroon eyes met Ryou's the moment he opened them, and saw the adoring smile on the boy's face, and he was smiling back before he realized it. Ryou gave a tiny laugh of delight and sprawled down, half on Bakura and half on the bed, and leaned forward to steal a kiss from the slim Egyptian. A hint of Bakura's possessiveness sparked in the boy; _my spirit, my dark self, my other self, my soul, my _life, _and he's all mine._

The moonlight bloomed gently over Ryou's hair, and found a barrier between the world and the ghost that lay just beyond and below his protector. _This is mine_, said the boy, calmly and gently, _this is what the world will never see._

The world, Ryou thought affectionately, had no idea what it was missing. He slid his other arm beneath Bakura's reassuring weight and held him close, the soft sound of warm breath lulling them both asleep.


	22. the modern advantage

**Author's Note: **Rather more blatant Puzzleshipping in this one... But what I really want to say is OMGWOW, I _love _you reviewers. I don't know how I got 56 reviews, but... yeesh. -hugs, kisses, chocolates, mini-bakura plushies for all!- If you find fluff extremely toxic, beware this chapter. The girly J-Pop made me write it!

Around Yugi's neck wound a chain; around and around and around until it was dizzying, an endless circle. The links were excessively large and crooked, but nothing else would support the weight of the Millennium Puzzle. All the same, Ryou thought, Yugi could have chosen something a little less flashy. Combined with the boy's habit of wearing black, slightly shredded things, the chain made Yugi look, well... Bakura offered a word, but Ryou refused it with abhorrence. And yet, it wasn't entirely unsuitable, the way Yugi dressed; it seemed to portray Yugi's innocence and the influence that his darker self had on him.

"How so?" Bakura asked, quirking an eyebrow so high that it nearly reached his white hairline. Yugi had gone to the restroom, so there wasn't any chance of them being overheard- although, Yami no Yugi was eyeing the pair of them with considerable suspicion.

"Well, Yugi doesn't _know _he looks like a... eh, that word you used. Shhh!" Ryou leaned forward and silenced Bakura, who was opening his mouth to repeat said word, with a swift kiss. "Yami no Yugi's listening, I think. Anyhow, I mean... Yugi really admires the pharaoh, and Yami no Yugi thinks that those clothes look nice on him... keep your dirty thoughts out of _my _head, Bakura!"

Bakura, snickering, did his best to keep his distinctly _wrong _thoughts from trickling into Ryou's soul room. Hastily, Ryou took a few spoonfuls of ice cream, in an attempt to cool his very red cheeks. He went on, "Even if Yugi was a little less naïve about his appearance, I'm sure he'd wear those clothes anyway, just because Yami no Yugi, er, likes him to. Because he admires the pharaoh. Er... and the chain is _necessary_, I suppose, because the Puzzle's pretty heavy and a string might break. Even a thin chain might break."

"You're babbling," Yami no Bakura informed him, and grinned broadly as Ryou blushed darker. "I'm can keep myself under control on occasion, you know."

Yugi returned, and- with some difficulty, and a helping hand from Yami no Yugi- climbed up onto his bar stool. The four of them were at the ice cream parlor again, out on the balcony that overlooked the water; it had become a sort of weekly ritual for them to meet here, although Yugi and Ryou rarely talked to each other. Such was the case that day; Yugi and the pharaoh ate identical ice cream cones and had deep discussions about Duel Monsters, while the Ring-spirit and his host talked, snuggled, or stared at the waves. Ryou always sat between Bakura and the spiky-haired duo, having learned early on that Bakura tended to eavesdrop on them if he could; and when Bakura eavesdropped, he tended to start laughing hysterically and mocking the heart of the cards, and then he would end up dueling Yami no Yugi, and Ryou would end up biting all his fingernails off in anxiety, and then Bakura would end up in the Shadow Realm for a few hours. And it was amazing how much Ryou missed kissing Bakura, no matter how short a time he was gone.

So, all in all, it was a good deal simpler just to sit between them.

"Do you think we should put the Ring on a chain, then?" Bakura said, squinting at the gleaming metal; he had it rested in his hand, and was turning it this way and that to catch the sun. It was blinding, but Ryou forced himself not to look away.

"No," Ryou replied, reaching out to toy with one of the sharp, dangling pointers on the Ring. "It's not _our _style in the least." He rolled the golden metal between his fingertips, noticing that it was quite frosty to the touch. Bakura nodded absentmindedly, and then dropped the Millennium Item against his chest, leaning on the railing around the balcony. His eyes followed the line of the shore, blinking when waves crashed against the sand, sliding slowly over women, men, and children alike. It was a fine day, the sun was bright overhead; families and groups of teenagers and couples alike had come to enjoy the heat and the water. Laughs and shouts echoed up from below.

"Are you sure it would _work _have two Magical Hats in the deck?" Yugi wondered. "I know it'd help the Dark Magician, but there's always the chance of someone picking the _right _hat for once. Maybe it's not best to rely on luck so much..."

"It's not luck, it's the Heart of the Cards," Yami no Yugi replied firmly. Bakura's smile grew, and Ryou was quick to regain the Egyptian's attention.

"So, Yugi and the pharaoh are a chain. That makes sense. Did the pharaoh look like Yugi, or just _similar? _He doesn't show up in your dreams very often. And you didn't look exactly like me, either. Much bigger, and... older. And your hair was shorter."

Bakura lost his amused look and considered that. "Similar. The pharaoh had red eyes- don't ask _me _why, I don't think his father was anything like so odd looking-, and his hair was even more spiked. He wasn't gothic, either, but I don't think they had goths in my time. And Yami no Yugi does seem to enjoy the differences between modern Japan and ancient Egypt..." For some reason, saying this made the spirit snigger uncontrollably. Ryou blinked; Yami no Yugi glared; Yugi pasted a look of innocent inquiry on his face and peered over at Bakura.

_What are you cackling about? _Ryou asked.

_The Egyptians didn't think much of men loving men, _Bakura replied, _but the Japanese do seem to be all right with it. _He accompanied this statement with a matter-of-fact mental image of Yugi and the pharaoh holding hands. _To be honest, this time is preferable, _the white-haired ghost added. He pecked Ryou on the cheek.

"Is something the matter, thief?" Yami no Yugi asked, looking annoyed.

"Nothing at all," Bakura answered, sitting up straighter and settling a look of dignity on his features. "Anyhow, Ryou, finish your ice cream. I'd like to get home."

"What? Oh- well, yes, fine," Ryou agreed, shooting the spirit a perplexed glance that Bakura didn't even acknowledge. He had chocolate, as usual, and it was melting rapidly in the heat. He licked the ice cream down to a manageable size and then slid off of his stool. "Bye, Yugi!"

"Goodbye, Ryou!" Yugi turned around to wave, as Bakura tossed the rest of his ice cream into the garbage and sprang down to join Ryou. "Goodbye, Bakura!" And then, the small boy turned back to Yami no Yugi and went back to his discussion. Said discussion seemed to be about not only the strategy of Duel Monsters, but also the meaning behind each individual card, which cards had originated from Egypt, and how Kuriboh was worthy of worship. Bakura rolled his eyes, and pulled Ryou towards the door.

"Why are we leaving?" the boy asked, nibbling on the edge of his cone as the pair of them emerged out onto the sidewalk.

"I've had enough of staring at the ocean and listening to the pharaoh's unhealthy obsession with card games for today." Bakura breathed in deeply, going down towards the crosswalk with Ryou in tow. "I'd much rather be at home enjoying the advantages of modern Japan, wouldn't you?"

"Of course." Ryou let himself smile, feeling a bit too adoring to get annoyed at Bakura for insulting Yami no Yugi. "I could tell you and the pharaoh were close to killing each other, anyway."

Ryou's apartment was a bit cluttered, but his soul room was impeccably clean. Everything was neat and organized, from the perfectly straight photos on the white-and-blue walls to his bed. Bakura was presently involved in making at least the covers of Ryou's bed messy, throwing himself down atop the covers with a sigh, a smile, and a bounce. The pale-haired boy joined him, sprawling across the bed and resting his head on the pillow.

Bakura rolled over until he reached the boy's side, and then rolled over once more. His bitter-chocolate eyes blinked long, fluttery lashes up at the lighter half, his chin resting lightly on Ryou's collar. "Enjoying yourself yet?" Ryou asked merrily.

"Egypt had nothing on this," Bakura breathed, and leaned forward to take another kiss.


	23. lioness

**Author's Note: **...and the author spastically develops a plot. That's right, a _plot. _And thus it shall be, 'till the end of the story. :D Sorry this is late, again, but I started one and then realized it had to be chapter 29, so then I started writing with chapter 23. xD Uh... probably no more fluff from here on out.

The sound of blaring music zipped by, accompanied by the roar of a pollutant-spewing engine and a gust of wind that sent autumn leaves swirling. Bakura raised an eyebrow, half-turned, and looked after the car, whose radio was still shrieking out obscenities and pounding rhythms; the vehicle blurred down the road at high speed, and was soon out of hearing range. It had probably been going a little too fast for a city street, but there were few people still out at this time of night. The pharaoh himself was, no doubt, home alone in his snug little bed. Perhaps he had started sleeping with Yugi; Bakura was the last person he'd tell, so the Egyptian had no idea. Nor did he care particularly.

The air was mostly still, although now and again a breeze would blow in from the sea. It was a calm night, and the moon was a scythe overhead; Bakura paused to lean against a tree and look up. The moon had reaped stars, and spread them all around itself in a dazzling display; the blackness of the night was otherwise absolute, but bursts of starlight gleamed all through the sky. Distantly, Bakura wondered if it was illegal to be wandering Domino so late; for once, he actually wasn't doing any harm, so he thought it would be a shame to be arrested. And Ryou, for all his shyness, wasn't much good at blending in, especially because he was very fond of his hair and didn't like to hide it.

Bakura wandered across the street, his temporary form remarkably warm for someone out at 3:00 AM in a T-shirt. His shoes clicked softly on the asphalt, and then splashed in the water pooled in the gutter. The shops were all closed, white paint on their front windows declaring the manner of their merchandise. The slender ghost passed by a bakery or two, along with game shops, book stores, office supply depots, and restaurants. Most of them he'd either never entered or never even seen, as this was the part of Domino that people avoided and businesspersons avoided setting up shop in. Bakura had seen worse, but the general appearance of the area was hardly pleasant. Few of the stores were in good condition, and alleys between buildings were littered with glass and cigarette butts. The air was smoggy, but that was common in any city.

A stray cat crossed Bakura's path; it was splotched black as midnight and white as a blind man's eyes, and it paused in its route and meowed at him. On instinct, he knelt down and respectfully held out a hand towards the creature; Egypt or not, he did admire the animals. They had a regal air about them, and this was the sort that appealed to him. Its large, gold-green eyes were feral and proud, even though it was mangy; Ryou would have cooed and coddled it, and commented on how the poor thing must be all alone, but Bakura saw a certain danger in it. It came towards him in the manner of a cougar stalking its prey, and he held very still as it sniffed his hand carefully.

The cat blinked large-pupiled eyes at him and then came closer, rubbing its head against his hand. Bakura reached out to stroke its head lightly, but his fingertips had barely brushed its matted fur when the cat gave an annoyed hiss and scratched him. The speed at which it moved was something quite impressive, and Bakura withdrew from the cat cautiously. A trail of blood trickled down his wrist, and the wound stung, but there was no remorse in the cat's angry gaze. It spat at him and stepped back into a puddle of moonlight. "Ah," Bakura said softly, as the pale glow illuminated the feline's head- more specifically, the way that its hair was tinted red and tangled in blood. "Hurt yourself, have you?" And he extended his hand again.

Reluctantly, with a _don't try anything _expression on its face, the cat came back and sniffed his palm again, seeming satisfied that it had cut him badly. Bakura's movement was so fast that that cat didn't even manage to comprehend it; he swept both arms under the cat's belly and, ignoring its snarls of protest, cradled it against his chest. It wriggled furiously, nearly ripping his shirt, but he just pinned it firmly and glanced about for a place to sit. There was a bench outside of a greasy little diner, and he went to sit there. The cat growled.

"Hush," Bakura murmured absentmindedly, and held the writhing animal at arms length. From what he could see, it was a she, and a pregnant she at that. The cat was underfed and much thinner than she should have been, but there was a definite bulge about her belly. "Well, well. Aren't you misfortunate?" the Egyptian asked, with a slight grin. "Stop scratching me, you know it won't help." He put her down in his lap, and circled his arms around her to keep her escaping. She tried, butting against him, biting and griping loudly, but the spirit just held her tighter.

He let his head fall back against the bench, and stared up into the darkness of the shop's striped overhang. His eyes were closed in a few minutes, as the cat began to stop twisting about and meowed piteously. He trailed his fingers absentmindedly along her back, avoiding the crown of her head, where the blood had clotted into a miserable, dirty clump. She was rather a Yinyang herself, or maybe just Yin; her fur was more black than white, and her temper obviously vile. And yet, she was soft, if you got past the dirt and grime that was ground into her fur. His hand ached. "Do you have a soul?" Bakura asked.

The cat mewed at him.

"Some say that animals don't," Bakura said, keeping his voice low lest it echo in the silence. "And you look like such a Yin on the surface that I can't be sure you don't _just _look like one. Hey, I did worship your kind back in Egypt, but I won't put up with that." The cat, who had just commenced scratching at his shirt, stopped short at the threatening tone in his voice. "And did you just respond to me threatening you on instinct, or are you actually paying attention?"

She mewed again.

"Shall I assume that was a yes?" Bakura looked down at the cat, and again at the swelling of her belly. "Then come along, unless you'd rather die." His knife slid easily into his hand, and then swiped through the air with the easy of much practice.

The cat gave an unearthly scream that rang through the streets, jolting half of Domino awake. Bakura's mental link told him that Ryou was still asleep.

The Millennium Ring flashed. A small, underfed, blood-soaked body fell limply onto the street as the lap holding it suddenly disappeared, and a dagger splattered with red lodged itself in the dead cat's side.

Bakura ended up sitting on his heap of pillows in his soul room, his hand tightened around a knife that was no longer there. He hopped down from the pile and stalked across to his soul room door, tossing it open and stepping into the hallway.

There was a cat flap installed in the wall beside Bakura's door. It was red, and decorated with little plastic jewels. _Yinyang _was embroidered on it. "You can't stay there," Bakura informed the cat flap, crossing his arms. "I don't want you near my soul room very long. Only Ryou can come in there. Get out here."

A defiant mew emerged from behind the cat flap, and Bakura's eyes narrowed. "_I _am in command here. _Out._" This time, there was no response at all. Bakura gestured, and there came a loud, startled yelp as a coil of Shadow Magic dragged the cat into his sight. "Was that so hard?"

She glared at him. Bakura scooped her up and carried her into his room, and dropped her atop one of his pillows. "This is temporary," Bakura said, watching the cat pace around on his bed and then curl up contentedly. "You can stay until you've birthed your kittens, which _might _be easier in here than in your real body- especially now that I've stabbed your real body- and then you leave. Clear?"

Mew. "And your name is Yin," Bakura told her. Meow. "Good."

A few days later, the radio-cassette player died in the midst of Ryou's favorite song. Hurrying to the cabinet to find another set of batteries, the boy noted that the Monster World board had been changed about again. He paused to look, with interest, at the new figurines that had appeared in Zorc's palace; a black-and-white cat, guarding the front gate, and a whole host of similarly colored kittens scampering about Zorc's feet. "Very nice," Ryou said, stifling a giggle.

"The great lioness Yin," Bakura said, "and her offspring."

"Lions are yellow, Bakura," the boy pointed out.

"Not this one," the Egyptian replied, and kissed him into silence.


	24. little memories

**Author's Note: **Do let me know if this chapter confuses the heck out of you, and I shall try to explain. xD Ahh, the newly-born plot thickens!

"Good morning, Bakura!"

And he saw- _sunlight the color of blood, burning him awake._

"Good morning, Ryou."

And he saw- _bodies strewn across the sand, his own delicious handiwork._

"Breakfast?"

And he saw- _worms wriggling in the sand, scorpions roasting, a bird screaming as it toppled from the sky with an arrow though its breast._

"Thanks."

And he saw- _red puddles in the desert, on his hands and in his hair and making his throat ache as he drank it in._

"Are you all right?"

And he saw- _a smiling face, kind and gentle and stirring him gently from his rest, asking him to be his friend forever because everything else was gone._

"Fine."

And he saw- _familiar eyes, open wide in terror or clenched shut in agony._

"You were having trouble sleeping last night..."

And he saw- _the sky, suddenly overhead and beaming as he woke up from his nightmares._

"Did I wake you?"

And he saw- _hands, fisting in the cloth, tears trailing, words pleading and threatening for them to wake up too._

"No. But I did feel it... my dreams always get odd when you do that."

And he saw- _the golden vaults of the pharaoh's tomb, everything that made the royalty royal, gold and jewels and precious silver gleaming from every wall, and he alone was unimpressed._

"Hn..."

And he saw- _standing tall and proud, draped in all the riches that had once decorated the graves of those long dead, and they were oh-so-angry because he drenched the sand with their blood and laughed and went on to mock their flimsy justice._

"Bakura?"

"Yes?"

And he saw- _light, more pure than all the gold and silver and jewels of Egypt, an angel in blue and gray and black, eyelashes fluttering against his own and lips descending to steal his heart._

"Are you sure you're all right?"

And he saw- _the humble angel, setting the table, setting out little bottles of vitamins- calcium, D, A B, C, among others- and the angel explaining why he had to eat vitamins at all._

"Why shouldn't I be?"

And he saw- _absolute confusion._

"Your eyes, they're... distant... you're not usually like this."

And he saw- Ryou.

Bakura blinked, and then seemed to come back to reality. "Yes, I'm- I just keep- I've been dreaming." Breakfast was instant ramen, because Ryou hadn't been to the store in awhile and they were having a food shortage. The boy had just tucked a grocery list into his pocket, for after school. Bakura wasn't _entirely_ sure how he knew that. "I wasn't awake..."

"Oh," Ryou said plainly, and gave his darker half a curious look. Bakura's hair was a mess, spikes of white splayed out from his head randomly, and his eyes had a been a bit clouded ever since he'd come out of the Ring that morning. He had taken on a slightly more coherent expression since, although Ryou saw the Egyptian staring vaguely into space while he ate his ramen. "Are you...?"

"I'm _fine_, Ryou," Bakura interrupted, not unkindly, and located his chopsticks.

And he saw- _knives._

Bakura paused. "Can I stay in your room today?"

"Isn't your room getting better?" Ryou asked.

"I had... odd dreams last night. Egypt. I need to sort it out somewhere that doesn't reflect everything."

"Of course... call me if you need anything. I can always hide in the bathroom and pretend I'm suddenly very ill if I have to pop into your soul," Ryou said nonchalantly. Bakura smiled. "Or just faint in the middle of class."

"That might result in you being taken to the hospital, you know."

And he saw- _stinging pain, bleeding, flashes of gold and falling in and out of reality, the sky going from black to black to gray to white and back to black, strange concoctions trickling down his throat and making him choke._

"I'll try to get to the bathroom before fainting, then," Ryou said cheerfully. Bakura rested his chin on one hand, absentmindedly eating his breakfast, and watched as the boy got up from the table and hurried over to the sink, stray ends of his long white hair fluttering. Ryou's happiness was consistently infectious, and Ryou was nearly always happy. That was something that Bakura had a difficult time understanding- because Ryou really _was _happy, right down to the core, without an inkling of depression or resentment. And the boy had Bakura to look after- in a manner of speaking- and he didn't hate the Egyptian either.

And he saw- _naïveté, lack of comprehension, idiocy._

Ryou knew Bakura down to the deepest, blackest pits of his soul and loved him anyway.

And he saw- _insanity._

Ryou rinsed out his ramen bowl, washed off his chopsticks, and set all three items in the dish drainer to dry; he wiped his hands on a towel hanging neatly from a little hook on the side of the sink, wiped down the countertops, quickly and efficiently. Bakura finished eating, and passed his dishes to Ryou, who took them and went back to the sink. "I keep remembering little things," Bakura said, looking after the boy.

"Little things?" Ryou repeated, vigorously applying his sponge to Bakura's bowl.

"I remember my past... better than anyone else does, except maybe you, and I haven't shown you everything. And I keep remembering tiny flashes of things I've forgotten because they weren't worth worrying about. All I ever wanted from my past was motivation, nothing more. Little things..."

"What kind?"

"Hmm?"

"What _kind _of things?"

"Smells... expressions... people that were afraid of me, especially the people in the big cities, the ones I slaughtered. I remember a boy... he was in my way, and the pharaoh was chasing me on horseback. I just jumped over him, but he died anyway, when I used the Ring. I- I remember his face..."

"Was he afraid?"

"Angry. And brave. Not like I was when the pharaoh's soldiers came through Kul Elna. I hid in the darkest corner I could find and I watched." Bakura's hair fell limply around his face as he stared down at the tabletop. "I was smarter than _that _boy. There's not much to be said for bravery, is there?"

"No, not really," Ryou sighed, sitting down across from the Egyptian and glancing at his watch. He had time to talk with Bakura a little longer and still get to school on time. "Especially when it does no good at all. What's the use of fighting something, if you know you'll just lose, and you can live if you accept it and go on?"

"And you can do a good deal more damage if you live to fight another day." Bakura's lips twisted in what looked a bit like a smirk, but was too bitter to be a happy expression. "Not that it would have made much difference to that boy. I was dead within a year of his death, so he wouldn't have had time to grow up and fight me."

"If you hadn't killed the boy, then maybe Yami no Yugi wouldn't have been angry enough to kill _you _when he got the chance," Ryou pointed out.

"I doubt it. He was already furious about me killing his priest and defiling his father's tomb." The thief did smile then. "He was a temperamental little pharaoh. Very short. Slightly taller than Yugi, but that isn't saying much."

"Did you tower over him?" Ryou asked, grinning at the thought.

"We never did compare heights, but I think I would have." Bakura contemplated that.

And he saw- _drunken splendor, crooked smiles and straying hands, purses waiting to be stolen, food rich and strong._

"And there was a restaurant..." Bakura trailed off. He was quiet, for a minute or two. "I wanted to kill everyone there, but I couldn't... I didn't have the Ring, I wasn't strong enough... and I wasn't _stupid _enough to try."

And he saw- _trembling, crying, the cruel eyes fixed on him._

"Hmm," Ryou murmured, and then checked his watch again. "I have to go to school now..." He closed his eyes and fell still, and Bakura slipped inside the Millennium Ring. He didn't have to look to know that his soul room was in turmoil; he just bolted for the door, threw it open, and ran across the hall to Ryou's room.

The lighter half was waiting for him at the door, and narrowly dodged as Bakura flung said door open and darted inside. The spirit leaned on the wall for a moment, regaining his breath and forcing himself to calm down, and then went to sit serenely on Ryou's bed. "Be back soon," Bakura said, slumping down and staring up at the ceiling.

"I will." Ryou disappeared without a sound, after kissing the spirit's cheek gently.

And he saw- _red._


	25. fault

**Author's Note: **Sorry, really late update. My dog (the larger of two dogs, actually) had a swelling around her eye yesterday, and when my dad took her to the vet they found out that she'd gotten a splinter in her eye somehow. They were able to get it out with no problems, and she can see just fine, but she's still pretty groggy and sedated and we have to give her medication because it was getting infected, so I've been snuggling her quite a lot. And the plot has run screaming from my control. I'm also very sorry about the confusion over last chapter... do PM me if you're still confused. Or newly confused (I hope this one is less confusing, I used slightly more sensical prose). Eh, whatever. Ph33r the made-up settlement, and my lack of knowledge about proper Egyptian geography. At least this one's longer and not much more psychotic than usual. xD

"I can kind of see why you didn't trust the doctors in your time."

Bakura heard the voice through a drugged haze, blinking slowly and trying to focus. Kind, low voice, gentle on the ears... very familiar. White hair. That meant something. He blinked a few more times.

"You're not very awake at all, are you?"

"No," Bakura agreed, his tone rather slurred. Someone was petting his head. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be furious, humiliated, or pleased about that. Furious was usually his reaction to anything, but furious required moving. And it might involve thinking, another thing that, at present, he wasn't particularly good at. Somehow, he did manage to recall that it depended on _who _was petting his head. "Who're you?"

"The pharaoh, of course," said the white-haired person. Bakura blinked. Did he like the...? His thoughts were interrupted by said person bursting into a fit of giggles that hurt his head. "You're _really _out of it, Bakura. It's Ryou. The other half of your soul. Remember me?"

Bakura blinked. "Ryou?"

"Better. That was pretty disgusting, what you did to the messenger, you know."

"I only knifed him," the thief protested. His vision swam a bit, and then cleared as he stared up at the boy. Ryou was sitting cross-legged beside the mat that Bakura lay on, cupping his chin in his hands and looking half amused, half concerned. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"He had a picture of you," Ryou said. "On papyrus. A rough sketch, but I think they would have figured it out. I grabbed it, just in case they find his body later. Did you have to kill the horse, too? That's animal cruelty."

"And I'm sure no one would suspect if a messenger's horse suddenly came running around town with no messenger."

"You could have taken off the saddlebags and ridden the horse yourself," the boy pointed out. Bakura shrugged, an odd motion when one was lying down.

"I wasn't _massively _coherent at that point, Ryou. If you want me to give you bloody injuries and see how logical you are, then I-"

"No thanks," Ryou said quickly, smiling. "How exactly did you get so beaten up, anyway?"

"Woke up screaming. Guards heard me. Last time I do _that._"

"You were sleeping... in your dream?"

"No, but that's how it happened back in Egypt. The dream didn't start until I was creeping up on that dratted messenger, and that was rather vague. Like I said, bloody injuries don't help with coherency."

"So people don't know who you are here?" Ryou asked, frowning. "I thought you were famous all over Egypt."

"Not yet. They didn't consider me a threat until I started looting _really _swanky tombs, they just knew who I was." Maybe it was the effects of the various odd-smelling drinks that the healers had given him, but Bakura was in an unusually good humor. Three of his limbs were wrapped in red-stained bandages, and there was a fine layer of sweat on his forehead, but he was wearing a pleasant- albeit slightly dizzy- smile. "It's this damn hair. Why are you doing that?"

"Because you look like a kitten," Ryou said matter-of-factly, continuing to stroke Bakura's hair affectionately. Perplexed, Bakura contemplated that metaphor for a long time, and was relieved to find that thinking was becoming measurably easier. "What kind of drugs did they _put _you on?"

"How would I know? I wasn't a healer."

"Though you'd never know _that _to look at you," Ryou deadpanned.

Bakura shook his head and sat up slowly, swaying only slightly as he looked about. Everything was perfect, reenacted down to the last detail, from the coarse bedding beneath him to the way the sand trickled between his toes. The only difference was that Ryou hadn't been there. Something was nagging at him. "How long has it been since I came here? Did they seem at all suspicious?" he asked.

"Well, I don't know how long it's been in the real world... time gets very blurry whenever anything happens to you, and you were unconscious. A day or so in Egypt time, I think. And I think you paid them too well for them to be suspicious."

"How much money did I give them?"

"A lot, why?"

"Damn. Ryou, be logical- how many ragged, poorly-dressed and _filthy rich _young men do you come across that aren't thieves? Yes, I remember this..."

Ryou fell silent as Bakura stared down at his feet; the spirit noticed how real it was, how clear and sharp. His nails were dirty and broken, and most of his exposed skin was roughed up somehow; there were bruises scattered across his entire body, dark purple against the bronze of his skin. "I don't think the people _here _had any chance to attack me, the guards showed up. Their messenger should have been back around nightfall."

"How'd you escape?" the boy asked, looking genuinely interested.

"Ah... I think I killed a few people and ran." Bakura smirked. "That was my usual solution for anything." He wiped sweat from his brow and pushed himself up from the floor, standing a bit unsteadily. Ryou immediately bounced to his feet, sliding an arm around the Egyptian's waist to support him. "We may as well play this out, I suppose, I never got caught."

"Sure. Your dreams are much more interesting than mine," Ryou remarked. "What do we do?"

"Wait until we hear the guards go _past _the door, slip out along the side- there's a little alley- sneak around till we reach the gates, get rid of anyone who sees us, and run for it. Oh, and you can keep holding me up like that." Bakura leaned heavily against Ryou, who squeaked and nearly fell under the brawny thief's weight. "Ah, well."

There was a long pause. The house around them was humble and small, a hut that belonged to one of the healers in the small settlement, which was little bigger than the main hall of the Pharaoh's palace. The settlement was meant as a place of rest, somewhere guards or priests or travelers could stop to eat and drink; it was near to the Valley of Kings. News of Bakura the thief-king was slow to reach all the way out to it, slow enough that the thief-king himself had, on foot, arrived at the same time as the messenger on horseback. Bakura had killed the messenger with the ease of long practice, and paid the people of the settlement very well to heal his numerous wounds.

"Maybe we could sit down until the guards come?" Ryou asked eventually, trying to plant his feet firmly in the sand, as Bakura- still a bit dizzy- kept slumping against him.

"Ten seconds," Bakura replied calmly, and pulled away to stand on his own, poised and attentive. Ryou edged nearer to him, looking a little worried, and his eyes widened as the dull, muted sound of hoof beats on sand rang from outside. Bakura's lips moved silently, counting. _Eight... nine... ten. _He grabbed Ryou's hand and slipped around the side of the house, into the miniature alley that he had told the boy about.

Voices talked, low and fast, as the pair of white-haired boys scrambled between houses; they reached the house nearest to the small, lightly guarded gate which was- due to the wall encircling the settlement- the only way out. "I remember," Bakura murmured again, and his mouth was set in a firm, determined line. He reached into his robes and located a trio of small, sharp knives; gripping two of them in one hand and preparing to throw the third, he crept slowly towards the gate.

The first knife made a soft, fast sound as it tore through the air, and the remaining daggers were flung from Bakura's hands in a matter of seconds. Ryou turned his head away as the three men beside the gate fell silently, the sand muffling thier landing; blood spread quickly from where the blades had pierced their flesh. They were dead before they hit the ground, and the thief-king developed a rather smug look on his face, glancing at Ryou. "Enjoying yourself?" Bakura whispered.

"Very much." Ryou was a shade paler than usual, but he smiled. "It's just like roleplaying with Monster World, but more real."

"Right- now we go. The guards never even looked my way, I remember..." Without further prompting, Ryou followed Bakura to the gate, avoiding the bloodstained sand with delicate steps reminiscent of a doe's. "This version is better," the Egyptian said quietly, pausing to look back at the settlement from the gate. "It's always better when you're-"

And then one of the guard's turned his head and stared at them both. For the barest second, Bakura held perfectly still, _frozen _under that gaze, unable to believe he'd really been seen. His lips parted; "_What...?_"

"_THERE!_" the guard screamed, and pointed wildly. "The thief king!"

"Run!" Ryou cried, and dragged at Bakura's sleeve. The thief caught sight of his boy's eyes, two inch-wide brown jewels studded with terror, and made a mad dash out of the front gate. Adrenaline overpowered the drugged state of his mind, allowing him to keep up with the slender, panicked Ryou. He staggered past and almost kept running when Ryou suddenly stopped short; he might have continued on, but the boy seized his arm. "Just wake up!"

That should have occurred to him! Bakura cursed his idiocy, and nodded swiftly, and-

A sharp pain across his cheek startled him back into the dream, as he tried to rouse himself; Ryou yelled, dithering helplessly as a flight of arrows pursued them, one tearing a slice into Bakura's face below his right eye. The guards were on horseback, and bore down on them faster than the thief could think. _Wake up, wake- open your eyes- they are open- no they're not!_

Slice. A second gash, just below the first, and Bakura leapt back fast enough that the spear merely grazed vertically along his face, instead of putting out his eye. _Why is it so _hard? _I've always been able to-_

Ryou _screamed. _The sound shattered everything. The ground hot and pliable- _sand- _beneath Bakura's back- _when did I fall?-_, and then cold and hard just seconds later. The pale thief opened his eyes- truly- and was shut them on instinct as he felt something lukewarm trickle towards them, from his cheek. He sat up- the something stopped trickling, and trailed down his face- and his vision was met by the usual darkness. His soul room, cold and bare but soothing in its simplicity.

He absentmindedly brought a hand to the damp place below his eye, and snatched it away as it _stung_, blood coming off on his fingers. The three narrow slices across his face were still bleeding. "Why... the... hell?" Bakura hissed, his throat dry and parched. _That was a dream! Why am I still hurt! Damn it, that was a three-thousand-year-old _dream!

"I remember that," came the voice of the thief. Bakura was on his feet, fists tightly clenched, before he knew what he was doing. His past self sneered at him. "You shouldn't play with fire, future self."

"What did you do?" Bakura screeched, and the echo made them both cringe. "What did you _do? _You lousy, interfering, worthless- oh-my-God, _Ryou._" He didn't bother demanding another answer, he simply fled for the door; the thief king caught up with him as he was brutally wrestling the door open, and reached for his shoulder. Bakura's fist struck the thief's jaw hard, and the future self landed a kick in past-Bakura's stomach for good measure before he scrambled out into the hallway.

The door thudded shut behind him, and then it locked.

Ryou was curled up on himself when the spirit burst in, springing onto the bed without a moment's hesitation; the boy cringed visibly when Bakura shook him, but he kept his eyes tightly closed. Bakura made a strangled whimpering sound, hugging Ryou so hard he could barely breathe. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so so so sorry, be all right, _be all right, _and where does it hurt I can be a healer if you need me-!" The Egyptian kept talking frantically, but his voice was muffled.

"But i-it was just a dream." Ryou coughed harshly, wincing. "Wasn't-?"

"I don't understand it but it's _me _and I _hate _it," Bakura choked, high-pitched with emotion.

The boy gently pushed Bakura away from him; his arms were shaking, and he didn't have the strength to be firm. His chest hurt, like heartburn- like it had after he'd first laid eyes on the Millennium Puzzle. "No," he said, as calmly as he could. "No, it's my fault. I shouldn't have stayed. It was because of me, things didn't go just as they should have-"

"_No-_" Bakura began to protest. Uncharacteristically, Ryou cut him off.

"Bakura, it's _my fault._ Don't blame yourself. Look at me." When their eyes met, Ryou repeated steadily, "It's my f-"

"Don't say that," Bakura said, quite wretchedly, and wrapped his arms around the boy; Ryou expected it to hurt as the spirit pressed his face against his chest, but instead Bakura's breath was warm and soothing on the ache. "Don't. You're perfect, Ryou. You know that. Tell me you know that!"

"I-"

"Perfect, Ryou, _perfect. _Perfect for me, perfect for anyone. I don't regret anything, I don't mind pain, I don't care because it means you're here. I don't care that Kul Elna burned!" His voice rose, to the point of hysteria, and Ryou rubbed gentle circles on his back to calm him; the thief was hugging him so tightly that his grip alone was rather painful. "You should hate me. I tried to kill your friends, I stabbed you in the arm, I nearly got you killed in Battle City, and now I'm good for nothing and you're taking care of me and you _still _don't hate me! Why don't you-?"

"Because you're perfect for me too," came the boy's voice, low and resolved, although it was smaller and weaker than usual. "I do care. I want to know everything about you, because Iwant to understand. I know why you've done everything you have, and I... want to know how to keep you happy. I want to _see _everything from Egypt, so it's my fault."

"Both of our faults," the Egyptian mumbled, his lips pressed against the boy's shirt; Ryou could feel warm blood seeping into the fabric, from the deep scratches in Bakura's face.

"Good enough," Ryou whispered, and held him close.


	26. visuals

**Author's Note: **Ne, a bit more fluff/humor here, purely because it won't go away. We're on the final stretch here, darlings! The plot unfolds. -nodnod- So, obviously, another late chapter. Yami no Bakura shortened to Bakura; Yami no Yugi shortened to Yami. Purely for the sake of my poor, tired fingers. Use of the word 'glowy' is stolen from one of my friends (my self-proclaimed master, and to-be conquerer of the Earth). RETURN OF THE PUZZLESHIPPING!

If you got right down to it, Yami no Yugi really did hate Bakura. Passionately. However, it was hard not to worry about one's greatest nemesis when said nemesis was attached to your friend's soul. Whenever Bakura started to look especially sulky or acted unusually nasty, Yami couldn't help but grow concerned for Ryou. The boy was altogether too nice for his own good, and Bakura certainly seemed the sort to lash out at offered kindness. Even if... Ryou and Bakura did have that habit of snuggling blatantly in public, and took every slight opportunity to sit next to each other.

It was only because of this change in Bakura's behavior that Yami had allowed Yugi to invite Ryou _and _the ring-spirit over to look at some new Duel Monsters cards that had just been imported from America. Sugoroku had, naturally, been among the first to get hold of several shipments of the cards. The dining room table in the back of the Kame game shop was covered with Duel Monsters; when Ryou and Bakura came in, Yugi and Yami were bouncing around the edges of the table, snatching up random cards and reading their effects. Yami kept making little appreciative noises; every so often, he would sit down and compare a card to one in his deck. "Hello, Ryou!" Yugi chirped. "Look at this card! It's got an effect that could make it stronger than the Blue Eyes White Dragon!"

Bakura crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame, glowering, as his lighter half was towed away from him. It wasn't until no one was looking that he straightened and, resentment oozing off of him, stalked over to the table. 'Cute' seemed to be a new American obsession- pink and purple and hearts adorned many of the cards, and there seemed to be rather a lot of holofoil. The cards were arranged by type, so Bakura wandered away from the Light and Earth monsters to locate the Dark creatures. "Much better," he murmured under his breath, locating a multitude of Zombies.

Yami no Yugi looked up from analyzing the strengths of Gaia The Dragon Champion next to a new American dragon-type, and rolled his eyes. As if sensing the pharaoh's disdain, Bakura directed a withering look in Yami's direction.

"I forgot!" Yugi exclaimed suddenly, wrenching the two Egyptians' attentions off of each other. "We're ordering pizza. What do you like, Ryou? ... and Bakura?"

"Sausage, pepperoni, extra cheese," Bakura said promptly.

"Me too," said Ryou, with a smile. "Thank you, Yugi."

"Artichoke hearts and sausage," Yami no Yugi said imperiously, ignoring the way Bakura pretended to gag at the very thought.

"Right!" Yugi said cheerfully, and hurried off to find Sugoroku to tell him everyone's orders. The other three returned to their inspection of the cards, although Bakura looked only vaguely interested; he had an expression of _I'm only doing this because there's nothing else to do in your stupid house _on his face as he picked up a few vampires. The vampires in question were extremely... pretty. One of them was a rather feminine male, the other a scantily-dressed woman. Bakura wondered, with a grin, how well these particular cards went over with young Duelists' parents.

"Don't steal anything," Yami no Yugi remarked, though he looked as though he might be about to steal a few of the nicer cards himself. Interestingly enough, it was Ryou who went pink at his words.

"Duel me?" Bakura asked, after a few minutes of silence. "Without Shadow magic. It might make a nice change."

The pharaoh blinked. That didn't sound like Bakura; the voice was just a little bit weary, and- if not resigned- less than enthused. "All right," he agreed, and looked longingly at a few of the new cards before putting them back and sweeping a space clean for them to Duel on the table. Bakura sat down across from his rival, and Ryou sat beside the thief, passing him their deck; quite like Yugi and Yami, the white-haired pair played with the same set of cards. "Holograms?" Yami asked.

"No," Bakura replied firmly, a note of resolve in his tone. Yami threw him a suspicious look, and they exchanged decks, shuffling each other's cards before handing them back to their original owners. "You go first," the ring-spirit commanded, drawing his hand.

"You're up to something," Yami no Yugi informed him. Bakura smiled at his cards, a rather sunny smile that didn't quite fit in with the image of Bakura that Yami had. The pharaoh pondered as he looked over his own hand- not bad, as first hands went- how Bakura _could _be up to something. Although he hated to pay the thief any compliments, even in the safety of his own mind, he had to admit that said thief had always seemed- well- _above _cheating. Bakura only cheated when he was truly in danger, and might die if he _didn't_, something that Yami could relate to. The pale-haired Egyptian probably wouldn't hide cards up his sleeve, and he didn't want to use Shadow magic...

"Dark Magician in attack mode," Yami declared, laying aside his doubts in favor of the game.

A few minutes later, he wondered if Bakura was actually going to get up to anything. The other Yami seemed to be playing quite contentedly, his left arm wrapped around the slender boy sitting beside him; Ryou's head was resting on his darker self's shoulder. Bakura played two cards face down.

The next turn, they were flipped face up.

They were still face up when Yugi came back, not ten minutes after he'd left. "Sorry it took so long!" Yugi said brightly. "Grandpa couldn't _believe _the things you wanted on your pizza- I had to convince him... is something wrong?"

Yami no Yugi stared at the table in silence. Ryou inspected the cards with interest. Bakura grinned, and trailed his fingers gently through the boy's hair. "_I-_" he began.

"He wins," Yami said soullessly. He had an empty kind of hurt in his chest, like the ache of a hungry stomach, and he had nothing but the table to blame for that hurt. With holograms, there were the last flickers of dying monsters to flutter past his face before they dissolved into the air, sad mementos of defeat like the shreds of a once-proud flag. With Shadow magic, there was _real _pain, throwing him to the floor and making him scream. The cards on the table were innocent; Bakura had won, but Yami hadn't moved his monsters to the graveyard. There wasn't any point.

"He didn't cheat," Ryou said softly, and kissed Bakura on the cheek. "I'd know."

"He what?" Yugi asked blankly. "Were you two playing?"

"Duel Monsters," Bakura explained. "Fair match, without holograms _or _Shadow magic. Clean victory on my part, for once." So saying, the pallid Egyptian closed his eyes peacefully and snuggled up to Ryou. He felt glowy; there was a pleasant warmth in his soul, and it stemmed from his own doing. _That _was something new. He was grateful that Ryou was there, but there was a sensation of pure, natural _magic _all through his body, and it was all his. If he hadn't been in the mood to gloat, he might've gone into his soul room and tried to catch that magic in his hands, hold it and cherish it like a husband was supposed to hold his wife. Of course, he'd share it with Ryou, though Ryou was glowy all on his own.

Yugi glanced worriedly from the blatantly glowy Egyptian to his darker half, and went to perch beside Yami, really half on his chair and half on the spirit's lap. "Yami, are you ok?" the spiky-haired boy asked, giving said Yami's hand a light squeeze.

The pharaoh gave a noncommittal noise. A part of him was seething, _why did I ever think there was something wrong with Bakura _besides _him being an insane thief? Was I actually concerned about him for a few seconds? I lost because I was distracted! Confused! He tricked me, with that sly smile-! _

And then he happened to look up at Bakura, and his doubts crept back into play. _He isn't gloating. There _is _something dreadfully wrong here. He's doing this to confuse me, damn it. Not that I expect any less of him._

"Yami?" Yugi said softly. "It's all right, it's just a game- and just _one _victory. You don't win everything, you know."

"But that doesn't stop him sulking when he loses," Bakura snapped. "Just deal with it, pharaoh, I _won. _You're the King of Games, and I'm a lousy thief, and I beat you anyway. If you ask me, your deck is too ambiguous."

"What do you mean?" Yami asked hotly.

"_My _deck- and before you protest, pharaoh, I just _beat _you with my deck, so swallow your pride and shut up- relies on two or three strategies, and has cards that act as backup in case all of those strategies fail. Yours is based around a big card or two, and everything else is backup. In short, you have no strategy, and while a deck of pure flexibility works against small fry like Pegasus, you'll have a difficult time against a _good _deck."

"I know how to play Duel Monsters," the pharaoh snapped. "Your deck has plenty of flaws!"

"At least I'm _aware _of them. No deck is perfect."

Yami no Yugi glared sullenly at the thief sitting opposite him, as Yugi gathered up the cards of their shared deck. Bakura, who had his eyes closed, didn't notice the filthy looks that Yami was throwing in his direction, though he knew full well that the pharaoh was fuming.

After a short, tense space of time in which Yami continued glaring, Bakura kept a smug look plastered across his face, and Ryou and Yugi looked at some of the American Spell cards together, the pizza arrived and Sugoroku called them all down to the kitchen. Wisely, Sugoroku hurried out of the room as soon as possible, on the pretext of checking something on his computer. Yami no Yugi ate the artichoke and sausage off his pizza, while Bakura rapidly consumed three slices. "Thank you for the pizza, Yugi," Ryou smiled.

"Thank you," Bakura echoed, almost inaudibly. Yugi started at the spirit's voice, and nodded. "So, pharaoh. Rematch?"

If looks could kill... "Bakura!" Ryou said warningly.

"Fine," Yami said, cutting Ryou off; he practically sprang to his feet, locating his deck at once.

"No holograms or Shadow magic," Bakura said, and beat him again.

"How are you doing that?" the pharaoh demanded, temper rising. "You've never been able to beat me before! You're cheating!"

"He isn't," Ryou said, quietly but firmly. "Contrary to popular belief, I _can _read his mind."

"Rematch?" Bakura asked amiably.

"Not until you tell me how you're doing it," Yami said angrily.

"Well, my monsters are outmatching yours, my strategy is overpowering yours, and my first hand was ideal," the thief replied coolly. "I believe that's all there is to it. Or are you accusing Ryou of lying?"

"I- no."

"Good. Yugi, may I _please _have another piece of pizza?" Bakura held out his plate, raising an eyebrow. The short boy nodded, hurrying off to get the requested food. Bakura ate in a silence punctuated with with quiet slurping noises and the crackle of pizza crust being crushed between rather sharp teeth. Ryou was still smiling determinedly, although he looked a bit strained, and Yugi was anxiously looking around the room.

Yami no Yugi merely stared at his opponent, because glaring was beginning to give him a headache. Bakura had gone even more insane than he had been already, Yami thought darkly, if he was actually saying 'please' and 'thank you' and beating the pharaoh at Duel Monsters. Although, he wasn't sure how being insane made one better at card games. Maybe Ryou had been helping Bakura practice the game. Maybe the thief had memorized his strategy. But _something _was amiss- the spiky-haired Egyptian was sure of it.

"Rematch," the pharaoh commanded, as soon as Bakura had set his plate aside.

_Yami! _Yugi scolded, but for once Yami ignored him. Bakura set up his cards, shuffled Yami's deck, and won again. Not easily, but none of the other games had been exactly _easy _either.

"It's not possible," Yami no Yugi protested.

Bakura gave a low sigh and threw his plate at the other Egyptian. It bounced gently off of the pharaoh's excessive hair; thankfully, it was plastic, and its fall was mostly broken when it slid down the side of Yami no Yugi's chair. Speechless, Yami looked down at the tomato-flavored smear down the side of his leather. "It is. Deal with it, I say."

_Good shot, _Ryou murmured. Bakura tactfully smothered his laughter.

Yami no Yugi stood. His height wasn't remotely intimidating, but his narrowed crimson eyes were menacing, and there was a rather _sharp _spikiness to his hair at that moment that added to how feral he looked. Bakura, unfortunately, wasn't looking at him. He was nestling against Ryou, looking self-satisfied and happy. Yami blinked. What did you say to someone who was obviously wrong in the head, and had just beaten you three times in a row? Much as he hated to admit it, his disbelief was fading. Bakura was really beating him.

He yelled at the thief for good measure, but refrained from throwing him in the Shadow Realm when Yugi threw him a fierce look. Ryou and Bakura were still looking pleasant and fuzzy when he was through, and he flopped dispiritedly down his chair.

Bakura regarded his rival placidly. "Rematch?" he said, at last. "In the Shadow Realm. I win, I take the rest of your pizza home; you win, you get to keep your title of 'King of Games'."

Yami's head snapped up. "I will not be made a fool of!" he snarled.

"It's impossible for me to make fun of you unless you give me ample opportunity, pharaoh, but back out if you will."

"Never!"

The Shadow Realm boiled around the edges of the room and closed in around them, thick and black like the smoke from a wildfire. Yugi and Ryou stepped close to their respective dark-self's side, while the Yamis exchanged decks and shuffled. As before, they sat down at the table, which was suddenly clear of plates, dishes, and pizza crumbs.

"Your turn to go first," Bakura conceded.

"Dark Magician Girl, attack mode!" Yami said zealously, feeling his spirit rise at the sight of the magnificent monster, appearing in a flash of light. This was _his _version of the game.

Bakura lost in ten moves. Without the slightest word between them, the two Egyptians reshuffled their cards and played again. Ryou was still sitting beside the thief, although not as close, because Bakura grew frightening in the Shadow Realm. His hair stuck out haphazardly, white spikes that stood out brilliantly in the dark, and his eyes lost all semblance of gentleness; they were the red-brown of dried blood, cold and ruthless, even as his life points drained to zero again.

And again.

They had played five, ten, fifteen times before Yami was through. The pharaoh swept his cards into a neat pile and put them in his pocket, before crossing his arms and giving the thief a majestic stare. "That last match was a tie," Bakura reminded him.

"That's why I stopped," Yami replied, looking thoroughly pleased with himself all the same. "I think I'm getting tired."

"Coward," Bakura retorted. "So, how come I beat you before?"

"You were playing mind games, weren't you?" Smug and content now, the pharaoh seemed genuinely interested.

"I wasn't cheating, if that's what you mean. When was the last time you played an important game of Duel Monsters without Shadow magic or holograms, before today?"

Yami considered. "Never. Only against Yugi."

"That's because this is what you're good at," Bakura replied, leaning on the table as the Shadow Realm began to drain again. His eyes were still hostile. "You're miserable at visualizing things. And you're best at a game where the stakes are high, where you can make friends with your monsters and make believe you're fighting for their sake. When you see Dark Magician in pain, it only strengthens your resolve to beat me. Whereas, I..." The thief hesitated. "I've... I always believe that the stakes are high." He was feeling a bit less glowy, and all because he'd decided to make the pharaoh feel better. "Ryou, come here."

The pale boy, who had been discreetly scooting away from the inconvenienced Egyptian, found himself grabbed and pulled closer. He squeaked, but relaxed against Bakura's shoulder.

"Now," Bakura said lightly, "more pizza, and be quick about it."


	27. thoughts of the thiefking

**Author's Note: **Argh... I really hate to say this, but you may have to expect updates every other day. Now that I'm not just writing the stories completely randomly, it's taking a bit longer to tweak them into place... and I have a lot of stuff going on in my life. However, I may be on time tomorrow, because I'm completely freeeee in the morning. Ah yes, and 'No one was alone' is a reference to Stephen Sondheim's musical _Into The Woods, _which is currently being rehearsed at the local high school- I'm playing Cinderella's Mother. n.n

It wasn't that he didn't comprehend... he didn't understand. He could see it all and take it all in, watch the days fly by from his tainted eyes, but he was confused. _Why _had things changed so much? They didn't _need _to. He knew from experience that things could go years and years and years without changing- people and places would remain stoic and resilient against the winds of time. Sure, they would die someday, but they were just people. The world was so much stronger. Why did _it _have to be different now?

They talked so much now. Too much. They could talk and talk because they knew things, more than anyone should have known; they could know more than he ever had, and still be considered stupid. _That _hurt. He hadn't been the most knowledgeable of the Egyptians, but he had been intelligent and resourceful; he'd fought his way out of a thousand traps, robbed any tomb he'd come across, learned the magic of the Millennium Ring, known how to shadow a person's steps and rob them blind in an instant. By Egypt's standards, he was clever and frightening, a demon in human shape, and that pleased him. In Modern Japan, he was a brute, a thug- and a foreigner, no less, who could speak only in strings of Ancient Egyptian.

That was among the reasons that his future self, the thing that called itself Yami no Ryou Bakura infuriated him so. The slender, pale ghost had changed dramatically over time; he was ashen-white instead of bronze and rough-skinned. His eyes had taken on a semblance of his hosts, narrower and darker than Ryou's but still a shade of chocolate-brown, whereas the thief king's eyes were pale amethyst. The Bakura of Egypt had hacked his hair short enough that it could hide beneath his headdress, else it attract too much attention, and Yami no Bakura's hair spread down his back in a long, spiked, snowy mane. And above all, Yami no Bakura understood everything of this modern time. The thief king had peeked cautiously out as the Yami leaned over Ryou's shoulder, helping the boy with something on the computer, and felt dazed. There were words and numbers that hadn't even been thought of back in Egypt; kilohertz, megabytes, equinox, electricity, holofoil, billions of sounds and voices that hadn't been there long ago.

The monsters of this time weren't real. Once when the Host and the Yami had been sleeping, curled up together in Ryou's room, Bakura of the past had taken control, enough to look at Ryou's deck. He'd held up the cards to the moonlight, and watched their surfaces sparkle with stars and sparks; he'd tried to translate the Japanese lettering on them into Egyptian, using the Yami's memory, but there were so many new things on the cards- _Cyber? Slot Machine?- _that he had quickly given up. It just brought him back to his questioning, the one question that plagued his consciousness- _why? _

Egypt had hardly been perfection. It had been full of faults- drought and cruelty, everyone under the command of the Almighty God-King, and death to anyone who dared violate the laws of the Pharaoh or his Priests. You were stuck with the life you were born into; Bakura had been born only to die, the progeny of rebels and thieves. Unknowingly, the guards that slaughtered the people of Kul Elna had given the thief-king a reason to go on, and a thorough understanding of the life he was meant to lead. If he put a foot out of line and got caught, he died; if he put a foot out of line subtly and skillfully, he prospered. Such was his talent that soon, even if he made a mistake, he could survive anything.

The Priests and the Pharaoh had done everything they could to stop him, from beating their morality into him with the fists of a God to knocking him into a bottomless chasm with their dying strength. Bakura lived, though the hunger of long, lonely nights in the desert had made his head spin and never once had he escaped a battle unscathed. But he didn't mind. Bakura didn't object to the lot he'd got in life, because, all in all, it wasn't bad compared to some. The ghosts of Kul Elna were there to remind him of that.

He had seen Egypt as both ally and enemy, against him and helping him all at once. The wind had covered his tracks when he fled deep into the desert, the towering dunes had provided shelter when he needed a place to sleep at night, the sun had scorched him badly, and the sand had stung in his eyes. The taverns, bustling with night life, had provided both a shelter and a hindrance to his goals all at once; it was difficult to keep from getting drunk, and to keep wandering eyes from peeking at the dirty-white hair beneath his headdress. But the beds had been soft and welcome compared to resting on the ground, and he had always had enough money. People had rarely tried to mug the brawny, red-robed Egyptian, and those who had hadn't lived to regret their foolery.

Egypt had been home; the whole of Egypt had been home, from the smoldering remains of his village to the towering spires of the Pharaoh's palace. There was a resonance in Egypt, a gentle strumming of power in the soil and the air, a rush of adrenaline in his blood that granted him enough speed to escape guards chasing him, a spurt of vibrant, beautiful red when his foes toppled before him. He was never alone in Egypt, Diabound at his shoulder and ghosts winding around his soul. No one was alone.

And here was the modern day. The Bakura of Egypt saw and felt more than the Host and the Yami expected him to; he was close enough to the Yami to be just beside him in the body, fingertips prickling with all the sensations on his skin- _thier _skin- eyes wide as they gazed out of the Yami's narrow, deadpan stare. He watched the homeless shrink back into their boxes and their alleys, and wondered at how sad and defeated they looked. In Egypt, he had been left with less than they had; he had fought for his very existence, every second of every day. They didn't fight. Perhaps they didn't even think of fighting.

They _couldn't _fight. There were undercurrents of power in the modern world, glimmers of darkness and light and magic beneath the wind; but people could eat and drink and devour the power, all without ever noticing it. And because they never noticed, they could keep taking it in, wasting it, while the misfortunate could have little or none. Bakura felt a tang of disgust, like a bitter taste in his mouth, though he wasn't sure what he despised more- the homeless for not fighting, the fortunate for being ignorant, or himself for surviving and ending up here.

He didn't understand.

He didn't understand how Yami no Bakura could despise his- thier?- soul room and prefer the outside world. He didn't understand how Ryou could be pure and innocent in this time. He didn't understand how the pair of them could face it, weak as they were, when it made him curl up and hide in the small part of Bakura's soul that he was. It was beyond the main regions, which were black as pitch and frequently studded with piles of gold and jewels and pillows and thoughts; in the back corner, just to the left, was a little corridor that lead deeper and deeper. The walls were dank and soft-covering-hard; they were smooth and silky to the touch, but Bakura of Egypt had nearly broken his hand when he struck one in frustration.

The corridor lead out into a chamber little bigger than a child's bed, not more than ten feet wide with a ceiling about three feet tall. Darkness kneaded in the corners, but the primary effect of the room was gold; tiny heaps of treasures lay scattered here and there, thin red blankets spread out across the flaxen ground. Bakura of Egypt rarely ventured out from here; he crawled inside on hands and knees, and lay on his back, barely concerning himself with how the walls shrunk from time to time. They only did that when the Yami was spending more than a few days with the Host, and the Yami could only hide from his past for so long. The Bakura of the past reminded Yami no Bakura of his presence constantly.

Bakura of Egypt breathed out slowly, lying as still as one dead before he breathed in again. The low ceiling was all that looked back at him, and he liked it for its simplicity. Yami no Bakura was far too complicated for his liking. The modern thief's soul was wrapped around Ryou, but he loved the darkness and could never truly belong in the boy's delicate, fragile light. He wanted to forget all about Bakura of Egypt, but at the same time he wanted to remember. He wanted to hate.

But the pathetic fool didn't want the pain that came with it.

"You'll remember, future self," Bakura of Egypt whispered. His voice wasn't made for whispering, and it was weak from lack of use; it cracked slightly on the last syllable. When he closed his eyes, he could see them together, the Yami and the Host, lips and hearts and fingers and hair entwined against the firelight sunset sky. "You love yourself more than you love him."


	28. captive audience

**Author's Note: **Blame this on Evanescence, the band that spawned a billion angst fics. COUNTDOWN! WE'RE IN THE FINAL TRIAD! -happybounce- And, good news- 29 may also be on time! I have an even 500 words of it already written, and I'm free until noon tomorrow. Geminishipping, you've been warned, and bloody things.

Yami no Bakura shut the door behind him, with a soft click. He moved across the hallway like one sleepwalking- with an extraordinary grace and sense of purpose, but far away in mind, his kohl-lined eyes half closed. His wandering mind made the journey to his soul room longer; the distance was ten feet at most, but he wasn't paying attention to the distance and so the distance went on strike. It was almost an hour later that he actually reached the door, extending his arm slowly and grasping the knob. He twisted it, steadily and surely, _like breaking a limb, skin intact but bones clicking and snapping, _and pulled the door wide open.

He was greeted at once by a torrent of darkness, encrusted here and there with diamond-bright sparks of a clean, pale glow; it reminded him of the night sky, melted down into a sea of shadows and moonlight. This was Ryou's influence, the little glitters and gleams that alighted in the deepest corners of the room, perching on the walls and catching in Bakura's hair. He breathed in, and almost forgot to breathe out, lost in thought; sighed, in a rush of air, and moved off into his room.

Unlike Ryou, Bakura was adept at traveling without the benefit of vision, having robbed many a tomb and traversed more than a few pitch-black nights. He found his bed without the slightest difficulty, weaving easily between treasure chests and stacks of weapons and scattered heaps of gold. The heap of pillows was inviting; for once, he found himself nestling amongst blankets, closing his eyes, and slipping into sleep, perfectly at ease. His soul room was still dark, but it was a calm and silky darkness, less chaotic. As he began to drift off, the spirit absentmindedly lifted a hand to his mouth, tracing the places where Ryou's kisses hand landed; on his cheeks, on his lips, and feather-light on his eyelids when he had let them fall shut. He could hardly remember being relaxed like this...

There was a quiet clink. It was a little sound, but it was sharp enough to start him awake; the spirit was very still, as tense as a coiled spring, and he waited silently for any hint that he wasn't alone. _A coin could have fallen_... so paranoid. Bakura sat up, and glared around into the gloom encompassing his soul room. Thankfully, his companion made no attempt to keep himself hidden; the tall tomb-robber was standing near a large patch of white glints, plucking them carelessly out of the air as they tried to drift away from him. The thief-king seemed rather curious about them, rolling them over and over in his fingertips before he dropped them into the air; he watched how they floated, before knocking them to the floor with the flat of his hand- _clink _on the stone- and crushing them under a sandal-clad foot. There was a momentary silence between Bakura and his past-self, before the spirit crossed his arms and said, "Stop that."

"Why?" Bakura-of-Egypt didn't even spare him a glance.

"Because..." Yami no Bakura paused. "... they're mine. I like them there. I said _stop!_" he snapped angrily, as the thief smashed another, this time with his heel; Bakura heard it break, a painful crunch like stepping on shattered glass.

"Haven't I warned you enough yet? It's stupid to argue with me." Yami no Bakura's angry words were rewarded when the thief-king turned to face him, lavender eyes cold; he wore the expression that many had seen right before they died, back in Egypt. "I _am _you- your better self. Anyone could see you're a shell of what you once were. Rotten from the inside out with the influence of your sugar-sweet Host." Bakura-of-Egypt spat the last word as though it were a forbidden curse. "No matter what you say, _I _am right!"

"It's not Egypt anymore." Bakura hissed, the space between him and his past-self fiery with mutual animosity. "You're just me of long ago. You don't influence me, you're not me- you're just an ugly, stupid, tattered old _thing _that took refuge in _my _soul because you were to weak to survive alone. You only think you're right because you were right back then! I admit it, there was no other way in Egypt, we would have died if not for your strength. I don't need it anymore."

"You can't just use me and be rid of me so easily, future-self. You'll always need me- there's no way a person like us can survive without _my _power."

"I have Ryou. He's all I-"

"Your precious host wouldn't harm a fly. He's an extra wheel, another thing to protect. You'd be better off being the only one in control of this body- maybe then I could talk sense into you!" The thief-king clenched his fist; the half-dozen glitters in his hand broke, falling the the floor in pieces with sad, splintering tinkles. Bakura snarled, rising to his feet at once. The remaining gleams flocked in his hair, camouflaged amongst long, white strands, and when he reached back he could feel them against the palm of his hand; like seaglass, they were a bit rough around the edges, but smooth and clean.

The thief-king brushed away a few sparkling remains from the sleeve of his crimson robe, gaze fixed on his hard-eyed future self. Bakura was taller than his past like that, glaring down at him from atop his heap of bedding. Bakura-of-Egypt seemed to notice that, and it displeased him; he walked forward, without bothering to muffle the slap of his sandals on the stone floor, and stalked up the side of the spirit's pile. Bakura took a step away from him, out of range, but not enough to keep the illusion that he was the larger of the two; the king of thieves stood a head higher than he did, an imposing figure in the shade. His roughly-cut white hair was wild, as always, hanging all around his head like a lion's mane. "This is _my_ room," Bakura informed him waspishly.

"Our room. You are me." Another step forward, and another step back. Bakura found himself on the edge; the flat summit of his blanket-pile was only so wide, and there was a few feet of room between himself and his past. "You are merely a part of myself. The part of _my_self that denies reality."

The modern thief lunged, twisting sideways and slamming his shoulder into the taller man's chest. Bakura-of-Egypt stumbled back, tripped, and fell heavily off of the heap; he sprawled at the bottom, and a moment later his attacker sprang down beside him, planting a foot on his chest. "One would assume that _hurt_," Bakura said nastily, "but I don't feel a thing; doesn't that prove the difference between us? Perhaps the part where _you aren't me?_"

The thief-king just reached up and shoved Bakura away, getting to his feet. "You deny me and you deny yourself."

"If I deny Ryou, then I deny myself," Bakura corrected, folding his arms.

"That little fool is hardly closer to you than I am."

"He is." Absolute certainty.

"That's not true!" the Egyptian snapped. Standing right before his future self, displaying his greater height again, he gripped the ring-spirit's chin in one hand and forced Bakura to look up at him; ignoring the thin ghost's snarled death threats and struggles, he continued in a voice that spoke into the air and into his future's mind. "No one is closer to you than I. You'll forget your precious Host, and you'll forget the Pharaoh and his friends, and everyone who's ever come near me, but you'll never forget Kul Elna. Remember the tombs?"

"I'll _kill-_"

"_Remember them?_" The thief-king's voice was low and dangerous.

"_Yes!_" Bakura growled. "Yes, I do remember, even if I'd rather forget! If I could, I'd forget you and everything you ever did. But I'd prefer _death_ over forgetting Ryou."

"What is death? You're already dead."

"And _you_ fell to ash and dust three millennia ago."

"We survived. You, the Ring, and I, together." He looked over his captive audience, and almost admired the purity of the hatred burning in Bakura's bitter-chocolate eyes. "You cannot fool yourself that you didn't need me to escape into the Ring."

The future-self clenched his fists, imprisoned in the thief-king's hands and gaze. The Millennium Ring glowed and then rose horizontally; Bakura leaned closer, and the golden spearheads dangling from the Ring jabbed at front of the Egyptian's shirt. They pierced easily through the cloth of his robe, five tears in the fabric, but there was a chime and the points stopped before they could reach the past-self's flesh. Bakura-of-Egypt drew out his own copy of the Ring; fingers coiling around its frayed cord. "You can't fight yourself."

"Watch me!" Bakura said furiously, too far away to knee his opponent in the groin as he'd originally intended; he twisted, trying to get his face out of the thief's grasp, swiping a fist and feeling it collide with his cheek. Bakura-of-Egypt seized his wrist, clenching his hold until pain overwhelmed the spirit's will to fight; breathing through tightly-gritted teeth, Bakura stopped grappling and fixed his past-self with a hateful stare.

"You can't say I didn't warn you," was the thief-king's only reply to the ghost's obvious anger. His cruel grip didn't loosen. "I'm stronger than you are. Even if you convince yourself that you don't need me, you can't get rid of me."

"Parasite."

"That's what Ryou used to call you, isn't it?"

"At least I earned my keep. What good do you do?" Bakura asked, coldly. "For yourself or for anyone else? What good have you _ever _done? I've achieved more in this lifetime than I ever did in yours. Ryou is more glorious than any treasure you ever found! All you can do is put a distance between Ryou and I, and you can't even do _that _for long-"

"You've forgotten so much." The thief-king sounded almost lonely, a single being in the middle of a storm. "Don't you recall the way the sun shone off of the tomb's jewels, the artifacts we stole? Remember the blood in the sand, red as these robes, the guards that tried to stop us and ended up dead? Don't you recall how wonderful it felt to be alive when no one else was? To be special and lovely and proud, even in the desert at nightfall..." Bakura closed his eyes and jerked his chin, and then flinched as the fingers on his chin pressed into his skin, hard enough to bruise. "Remember?"

"I remember-"

"Those tombs always had traps. Pendulums, sand, pits of spikes, spears hidden in the walls, curses and monsters, and we could turn them all against their creators."

"-R-ryou and I..." He couldn't see the boy, even in the darkness behind his eyelids, it was the thief's white hair, the thief's narrowed amethyst eyes like gemstones. The thief's life... "I remember-"

"Remember how people would kiss the thief king?"

Bakura didn't look up, not really, because his eyes were tightly shut, but he tilted back his head and the thief-king leaned down to Bakura's height so the spirit could press a small- "-frightened-" -feather light- "-trembling-" -kiss- "-sweet-" -on his past-self's lips.

"I r-remember-"

"Good," the thief-king said, softly. "You belong with me, future-self. Remember how he kissed them back, because the thief king never wanted people to forget him?"

The king of thieves moved fast, faster and more gracefully than a man of his size should logically have been able to, spinning Bakura around and throwing his full weight against him. His hand left the spirit's chin, seizing Bakura's other arm and pinning it; they both lay at the base of the ghost's heap. Bakura struggled to regain breath, crushed underneath his past-self's weight, head swimming. The ancient thief dipped his head, kissing Bakura fiercely and painfully

Close, _too close!_

_We breathe the same breath..._

Shadow magic exploded from the Ring, sending the thief skidding across the floor; Bakura was on his feet at once, breathing frantically, aching everywhere. A line of Shadow power located his knife, snapping it into the palm of his right hand. The white-haired pair paused only an instant, eyes meeting, before they lunged at each other; Bakura didn't know how his past-self had found a knife too, but he felt it before he even saw it, raking down the side of his arm.

"_Remember the pain_...?"

Bakura screamed.

He didn't stop until his voice broke, and pure darkness followed soon after that.


	29. mistrust

**Author's Note: **...okay, I lied, I did miss another update. Sorries... This is a warning, I may not throw up the last chapter until Sunday; I have a trip on Saturday, Friday is insane so I won't get much writing done then, and... well, it's the last chapter, so it'll take some poking. **EDIT, PLEASE READ TO AVOID CONFUSION: **Un... only the little Bakura-talks-to-Ryou thing is a flashback; everything is present-time, and takes place a short time after the previous chapter.

Bakura lay on his back and contemplated the ceiling, or lack thereof. He didn't recall if there had ever _been _a ceiling, a lid on his chaotic soul. He watched his emotions, like many-colored snakes, curl and roil in the air above his head; ribbons of thought fell and gathered, swaying gently through the scope of his vision. Once upon a time, he knew, everything had been in shades of black and gray and white; that was why the red had excited him so, a brilliant splash of blood where everything had been dark and bleak. The red had diluted to a soft pink, muted and dull, and had gone swirling down the drain.

Love had stained everything, tie-dying the whole world blue, silver, green, orange, brown, and strawberry-red. Bakura had simply watched, in complete awe, as rainbows bloomed across the room. It had delighted him, spreading a blush across his cheeks and making him smile, truly and as purely as a clear sky; and even when he had recovered from the novelty of that, and the colors had faded back to darkness, he had felt the imprint it had made on him. The soul room might have had a roof at that point, or perhaps that was when the roof had disappeared. Had Ryou _made _a ceiling, giving him control, or destroyed the ceiling that had penned up his emotions? Bakura didn't know, and he wasn't liable to spend much time worrying about it.

He hadn't closed his eyes in a long time, and tears were spilling out of them, staining the pillows that his head rested on. Strips of feelings fluttered about, tattered and sometimes bloodstained from where Bakura's hands had snatched at them. He'd tried to capture them, the nicer ones, but he'd only succeeded in damaging them; his red-splattered hands had seemed to frighten them away. Bakura's eyes were growing lifeless, staring blankly upwards. He couldn't move. His soul room was likely colder than it had ever been, but his senses had faded and he couldn't tell.

Blood was still flowing, trailing slowly over his chest and stomach, across his neck and down his cheek, soaking the blankets until they could hold no more and then it dripped onto the floor, rhythmically, drop by drop. He heard it make a soft sound as it struck there, like water falling into the sink from a leaky tap; and it hurt his ears, in a distant sort of way. As if to make up for the stillness of the rest of his body, the red kept moving, pooling in places and trickling in others. He tasted it in his mouth, bitter and coppery, and he remembered desiring this flavor a long time ago. His throat was dry, the blood crusting around his lips and tongue; and it should have hurt a lot more than it seemed to. While they had fought, it had hurt- worse than he could ever have imagined- but the pain had... gone. Numbness had taken hold of him, his body's denial of the damage it had been dealt.

Bakurawasn't there. It was strange for him not to be, but he had felt himself beginning to drift away and simply gone with it; he wasn't capable of resisting, anyway. He didn't wonder where he could have drifted away to, even though he was inside his soul with the physical form that was the reflection of his soul and there weren't many places to go from there. The state of his body didn't really concern him. He still saw out of his wide, unfocused eyes; he felt, dully, a warm red spreading from his open wounds; and that world was completely there, but not there at the same time.

The mind link was closed. How long had it been closed? And had he closed it, or had his past-self done that to ensure that Ryou couldn't interfere? It hardly mattered; Bakura had no words with which to speak to the boy, and he couldn't send his _feelings _across the link. Pain... (and he didn't want Ryou to suffer any more because of him) sorrow (Ryou didn't need to deal with Bakura's problems for him), hatred (the boy hated hatred), and love (he didn't know who for, but he feared it might be for the wrong person, and he couldn't risk Ryou guessing).

He stared at the ceiling for a moment, and then he turned his gaze deep inward, towards his heart; he did so without moving a finger, which he mightn't have been able to do anyway. There was nothing there, but that wasn't out of the ordinary; if there was nothing, then there was no space to change anything. A room of the soul could be remodeled, broken, stained with blood; the heart only changed as a result of what happened outside. There was nothing to see inside Bakura's heart; it was in the darkness behinds his eyes- why were they always closed here?- that he saw things.

Pictures. They weren't framed pictures. They were like little clips from movies, the sound perfect and the images sharp; though, sometimes the sound was distorted and the images blurred. His eyes were the camera, his ears the microphones; here, in his heart, he saw the pictures sitting there; a good half of them were of Egypt, and the other half of a room in blue. He saw the pictures move, sometimes slowly and sometimes quite quickly. He watched the scenes unfold...

_I am... I cannot put a name to this? Why? _I_ am not afraid! The very idea of it, _me _afraid of that miniature Host. He unnerves me... can I admit that much? No, no! I am not unnerved! I-I just don't care. I don't care, I don't care he's coming closer, I don't care- what is that look in his eyes?- I don't care... something... what?_

_Ryou took another step forward. Bakura's back met the wall, and the spirit realized quite abruptly that he was in a corner, with the boy advancing on him. How had he become so confused as to not see that...? Bakura straightened, glaring daggers at the Host, but faltered as Ryou did nothing but hold out a hand._

_It was a very simple gesture. It didn't require very many muscles. It didn't require very much at all. Ryou looked as though his existence hinged on it. His arm outstretched towards Bakura, and his eyes locked onto the fiery spirit. Bakura raised an eyebrow, and instinctively ducked back- stupid wall was in the way!- when the boy bit his lip hard and came forward, reaching. Bakura stayed still as a statue, staring back. "Why the heck do you want that?" Bakura snapped._

_"Please give me a chance?" Ryou asked, in a small voice, pleading. "I don't know if I can... please, Bakura, just _one chance. _I want... even if I never ask anything of you, ever again..."_

_I don't understand why he wants this, he doesn't make sense sometimes, or ever, maybe I just don't try to understand him, but why am I blaming myself for what's his fault?_

_Confusion..._

Confusion...

_Confusion...!_

_Ryou couldn't seem to stop and let him think, looking at the cornered ghost desperately. Bakura realized worriedly that Ryou wasn't going to stop; he'd been trying to bring this up for weeks, trying and failing miserably, and now he's really not going to let it drop, because the damn boy has courage even though he doesn't show it most of the time._

_"Please," Ryou said again, and this time it was nearly a whisper; his voice broke. Bakura forced his eyes to remain cold, even when he saw the boy cringe at the lack of response, even at the pain coloring Ryou's words. Ryou took a step forward, and stretched his hand toward Bakura. "You have no idea how much I need this, I need... this," he repeated, more softly. "More than anything else."_

_There was silence. It went on for about a minute before Ryou broke it- "Bakura, I-I beg you- it isn't as though I'm inexperienced, I don't want this for the thrill of it, I'm more worried about you wanting that, but I can see you don't!" The boy halted in his progress, less than a yard from his dark-self now. "Try to understand, won't you?"_

_How can he ask that of me...?_

_He's not going to shut up..._

_I can _make_ him shut up- no I can't, I need him, his body..._

_... But I can damage his soul, can't I? I can look into those doe eyes and..._

_Bakura took a threatening step forward, placing himself right in front of Ryou. _

_The boy had very delicate features, the spirit realized out of the blue; the bones of his face were thin, birdlike, as though they would break if you so much as touched them. Perplexed, the ghost let himself run fingertips down the line of Ryou's jaw, disliking what he saw. Was the body that his Host provided with him this weak? He'd never allowed himself to be struck, so he didn't know how easily shattered this kind face was. A moment later, he noticed that Ryou had closed his eyes, apparently enamored of the caresses trailing from his ear to the tip of his chin. "Are you so desperate for _me _that you enjoy even this? It is not affection," Bakura said waspishly._

_Ryou flinched. "I know that," he admitted, meeting the spirit's gaze as Bakura stopped his ministrations and folded his arms- creating another barrier between himself and the nervous boy, perhaps deliberately._

Novocaine kisses, Bakura felt, falling on his lips and down his cheeks, spreading bitter cold through him, the thief-king desiring his attention, desiring Bakura's pain, desiring Bakura; he should wake up, perhaps he could move now, fight-

_Brown eyes... red-tinted cheeks..._

He wanted to stay with Ryou.

_"Ten seconds, Bakura?"_

_"No."_

_"Five?"_

_I can handle five seconds..._

_"Do as you please."_

_"Come here..."_

_First, Ryou just reached out and took Bakura's hand in his- two seconds- and then he just wrapped his arms around Bakura's waist and leaned against the spirit's chest, counting softly. Through their mind-link, the spirit felt a bliss that was absolute, Ryou's pure and utter joy at merely being this close to him, in their own little world. And there was uncertainty, a tint of worry, that Bakura didn't feel the same._

_Three seconds later, Ryou moved away, lowering his eyes and awaiting a verdict from the ghost. If he had looked up, he might have seen the look of bewilderment that dominated Bakura's features for a long moment, before the spirit affixed his usual frown in its place. "What was that?" Bakura demanded. "You didn't do anything! All you did was- was- _be _there! Why does that make you so happy?"_

_"I'm not lusting after you, Bakura," Ryou said quietly. "If that's what you think."_

_"... What?"_

_"If I was, I wouldn't ask you, or show you. I've had those relationships before, and they're not pleasant, especially when one person thinks they actually mean something. I know you don't want something like that, either. I don't need to... you know... I don't need to sleep with you, all right?" Ryou burst out, clenching his eyes shut._

_"Well, then what _do _you want?" Bakura asked, glaring to mask his confusion._

_"You," the boy said immediately, and then winced. "But not the way that sounds. I just want a chance."_

_"I gave you one."_

_"Five seconds!"_

_"Aren't we picky today?" the spirit snapped. He dropped his arms to his sides, resisting the urge to sigh loudly. "Ten more seconds."_

_"That's not long enough," Ryou replied._

_"And now you're questioning me," Bakura said, coldly. "You have a death wish, Host- first you just stand up to me, get me killed, then you decide you _want _me, and now you're in a position to demand favors from me?"_

_"Ten seconds isn't long enough for me to show you _anything_," said the boy, and his voice was harder than Bakura had ever heard it. _

_This is what he wants more than anything, so... for once... I can't talk him out of this... I can't hurt him when he won't really take any damage, I can't hurt his body and it's pointless to hurt his soul. "One minute."_

_"One hour."_

_"_What!_"_

_"I said an hour, Bakura. You've had three thousand years and more, Bakura, an hour won't kill you!" Ryou said angrily. "It probably won't have any effect on you at all!"_

_"That's... true..."_

_Expectant hopeful pleading huge brown melting chocolate ice cream mirrors into Ryou's soul..._

_"Just one hour."_

_Bakura closed his eyes._

And closed them again.


	30. colors

**Author's Note: **-stares at review count- Holy wow, people. Holy wow. Damn, I don't deserve you, you wonderful lot... I apologize for the uberlate update! I got home real late on Sunday... -sigh- Fun trip, but tiring. And the only writing I did was a little thing for my friends- original fiction. Creepy. xD Anyway, um, story's over. This is kind of a breakthrough for me, because I'm absolutely _dreadful _about finishing things... oh, and all of you darlings who want to know what happened in the one hour? So do I! So that will be written too, probably within a week from now! You might want to Author Alert me, if you're interested, so you'll know when I post it. Un... and I love you all. Should probably stop blabbing and let you read it, ne? Past Bakura is reffered to as the Egyptian, Thief-King, etc.; the titles he had back in Egypt. Present Bakura is simply Bakura, the spirit, the Yami, etc. And this one takes place right after the previous one. No more confusion! -cheer-

Predictably, the thief-king woke up when he heard Bakura begin to scream.

The Egyptian raised his head slowly from the floor, careful not to bump it on the low ceiling; he was lying in the little golden room of his inside Bakura's soul, which had been getting considerably larger until a few hours ago, when it had stopped growing. For a time, it had simply stayed the same size; and then it had started to shrink. Thief-King gritted his teeth; Bakura was thinking about the Host again. Why couldn't the boy stay out of his thoughts? How could the modern thief even remember Ryou now? Hadn't the Thief-King showed him everything that _he _had to offer, the kind of passion and power no mortal could give?

Hadn't Bakura... accepted him?

Another shriek echoed from the main room. The Egyptian gave a hiss of annoyance, and then a sharp gasp as he realized the walls were closing in, faster than before. _So fast! _He did strike his head, then, scrambling haphazardly out of the space; it was suddenly like a tomb, too small and too tight and unmoving. He crawled rapidly out of the imploding den, rising to his feet and turning around to stare. His room, already little, had become about an inch high and a foot or two wide. Bakura wasn't just focused on Ryou; he was forcing the Thief-King from his mind entirely.

"How dare you!" Thief-King snarled. His features twisted in anger, he tore into Bakura's chambers. "How dare you try to forget me, future-self? How _dare _you? I am you! You're mine!"

Then he paused, and listened to the silence ring around him. There came a soft thud, and a whimper, and then the quiet was complete again. The past-Bakura blinked, cautiously moving forward into the gloom. His eyes had begun to adjust, enough that he could see a lump at the bottom of his future-self's blanket pile; slightly closer examination revealed said lump to have white hair and modern clothes, all bloodstained. The ghost rolled onto his side, away from the Thief-King, giving a choked sob. "What's wrong?" the Egyptian asked, coldly, touching Bakura's shoulder lightly.

Bakura flinched against his touch, curling into a tighter ball. "Fell off," he growled hoarsely. "Get the hell away."

"Obviously," Thief-King snapped, grabbing his arm roughly and jerking Bakura onto his back. "Why were you screaming?"

"Nightmare," the spirit said coldly, glaring. "I said, get away from me!"

"I thought I'd already taught you well enough." The past-self leaned down, planting a kiss on Bakura's lips; his hands trailed lightly, but not gently, over the curves of Bakura's face, locating the bruises and cuts there, numerous injuries that he'd caused earlier. Admittedly, he felt for the Yami; but he wasn't sorry. It was Bakura's fault that he had to be shown why the Thief-King was truly the other half of his soul; it was Bakura's fault that the lesson had been a brutal one.

This would have been considered a great sin back in Egypt, he knew; the red-robed man grinned, watching and _feeling _Bakura cringe at the second kiss. It would have been unthinkable, cruelty of the most vile kind. And how he loved to affront the gods.

The spirit made a soft, angry noise in the back of his throat, cursing the hands that kept him from tearing away, cursing the lips that paralyzed him. Again and again, Bakura found himself helpless- unable to resist Ryou's seduction, powerless in the eyes of his rivals, lost in the thief-king's touch, beaten down by anyone he fought; when was the last time he'd won anything important?

Never?

_Never..._

_Defeated by the Pharaoh. Corrupted by Zorc. Orphaned by the Priests and their soldiers. Now my own past..._

Bakura closed his eyes.

_I'm so sick of this..._

His brow tightened with lines of hate.

The thief-king was unfortunate enough to choose that moment to kiss Bakura a third time. He jerked back with a screech of pain as the spirit's unusually sharp teeth bit down on his upper lip, and Bakura twisted out of his grasp. They both had knives in hand immediately, Bakura's hand shaking on the grip of his, and the slender ghost forced himself to stand. The Egyptian wiped a trickle of blood off of his chin. "Is it impossible to teach you anything?"

"You really like messing with my head, don't you?" Bakura's eyes narrowed to slits, bright and almost red with anger. "Come near me and I'll _kill _you."

"That doesn't work," the past-self said, somewhere between smug and angry. "You can't do anything. You've failed to hurt me, failed to serve Zorc, failed to provide a proper challenge for the Pharaoh-"

"Because I don't care about you, Zorc, and the bastard Game King!" Bakura retorted, hand clenched so tightly around his dagger that it was going numb. "I don't care what happens to you, so long as you keep out of my sight."

"That's not true-"

"Yes it is. I don't hate you." Bakura sidestepped around the pile of blankets, so he'd have a way to run. "I don't hate you. You've put more towards your goals than I ever could. I admire you. You've..." He lifted a palm to his mouth, and rubbed it across his lips, as though he could destroy any trace of the kisses that had fallen there. "... Defiled me. I don't want you."

"Denial," Thief-King said brusquely.

"Truth."

"Denial!" He took a threatening step forward. "You're just resisting inevitability."

Bakura moved back, on legs that trembled; however thin and small he was, his weight was almost too much for his shaking limbs to support at the moment. "Truth," he whispered, and watched the flame bloom in his past-self's eyes. It was like seeing the flowering of a bomb's mushroom cloud; first just the imminent rumble of dust and smoke and bared fangs, and then the explosion and the glinting, amethyst fury.

"You're _mine_," Thief-King said, equally quietly. Bakura flung his knife, but the Egyptian merely ducked low to the floor, without once breaking stride as he closed the distance between them. A blow to the chest from the hilt of Thief-King's dagger sent Bakura sprawling to the floor; the ring-spirit bit his lip so hard that he drew blood, but quelled the screams that rose in his throat.

Coldly, "Never."

"You _are!_" The thief's grasp was viselike, bruising Bakura's arm.

"No." _Help..._

The Egyptian's fingertips pressed against Bakura's shirt, seeking out and needling the wounds there; his nails were like the five spearheads dangling from the Millennium Ring, sharp and cruel. "You'll gain nothing through denial."

BANG.

The door burst open, and was thrown against the wall with such force that it rebounded harshly. The past-self looked up, and Bakura heard him cry out as a flood of light blinded him; Bakura had already shut his eyes, aware of what was coming because of the frantically whispering voice from his mental link. There was a thud, and the pressure of Thief-King's hand on his chest was gone.

The lights dimmed, as the source of their power focused on something else for a long, silent moment. And then the lights were overhead.

"Bakura?" asked a soft voice. A cautious touch on his skin, and then arms around him, cradling him gently. "Bakura, please wake up..."

He opened his eyes to the Host's face; Ryou's round, kind features. Blood splattered the boy's right cheek, but it wasn't his; Bakura's gaze trailed over the red stain questioningly. "Had to take care of the Egypt-you somehow," Ryou murmured, almost apologetically, as though Bakura would be angry at him for harming the thing that had nearly killed him.

"Is he alive?" Bakura said, his voice rasping in his throat.

"Yes, I... think so." A slight blush spread across Ryou's features, but that was all. "_Can _you kill a soul?"

"No," he murmured.

"Good." The boy held him tightly, close to his heart, resting his head on Bakura's shoulder; it should have hurt, having anyone touch him with his injuries, but Ryou was so impossibly compassionate, so perfectly _understanding_, that his touch was nothing but warm and soothing. "I thought, he might have killed you..."

"You can't kill what's not alive..."

"That's why I worry about you." Ryou pulled his head back; their noses touched lightly. "You are alive. Here and outside, you have a heartbeat... more importantly, I feel how... _awake _you are. Radiant." The Host leaned forward, just a tad, and brushed his lips tenderly against Bakura's.

Everything fit, neatly, like a puzzle solved by skilled hands.

It was some time later that Bakura remembered to thank Ryou. They were sitting on the balcony overlooking the waves, just outside the ice cream parlor; the Pharaoh was discreetly edging closer and closer to Yugi, and occasionally offering the small boy a bite of his ice cream. Bakura watched this exchange with amusement, while Ryou smiled affectionately at the spiky-haired pair.

"Ryou?" Bakura said, quietly, and drew Ryou's attention to him with a kiss on the cheek. The boy turned to him, smiling. "Did I ever... thank you for..."

He paused. Ryou waited. "Did I remember to thank you?" he asked, finally.

"Um..."

"Well, then." Bakura placed his hands on the Host's shoulders and, pulling him near, snogged him. Thoroughly. Yami and Yugi turned around to stare.

"Bakura?" Ryou said, when he finally broke away.

"Yes?"

"Thank _you._"

A shout out to all meh lovelies! I adore you, all of you that reviewed and stuck me on your favs lists... I'd like to send you all personal thankyous, but alas I'm pressed for time... tell ya what, review and I'll send one by way of reply. xD Yes, I am bribing.


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